New digital SLR user needing advice.

sejjie

sejjie

sejjie

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Joined
3 Oct 2007
Posts
17
Hi, I bought an Olympus E510 this week along with some accessories and quite an informative book on digital photography. This is my first digital SLR and I bought it because I wanted to get into photography. However seeing as yesterday I didnt even know what aperture meant, I would like a few pointers.

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The only automatic setting here is focus, the rest was on manual - they have been reduced to 25% of their original size. Obviously there must be lots of things wrong with these photos so I would really appreciate it if anyone who was experienced with photography could tell me how I could improve these shots (aperture/iso/wb/shutter speed/composition etc).

Also im taking some photos of events at a nightclub tonight so any advice will be welcome.

I would ask people at my uni, but as Im at a social science uni there arnt many photohraphy boffins!

Many thanks in advance.
 
They all look like nice and crisp shots so photographically speaking they're good :) composition is something that will come naturally as you take more and more pictures so dont worry about it too much...just experiment :)
 
The best one for me any way is number 3, the street cleaner. The only thing I can make out thats 'wrong' is it could do with a little tilt to one side. Its not quite level (the guttering on the house with black roof). The rest, like as said above, very crisp and clear. and the composition will come soon. impressive first shots.

Just wait till I get my new SLR next week.:eek:

Edit: I had a little play with your street cleaner. Altered the levels and contrast a little and cropped some after rotating slightly. plus added a border.

dosser.jpg



Great stuff and you will get better. I have, and thats with a crappy point and shoot.

Some reason its gone all out of focus.. ???? maybe compression.
 
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what software are you using to process images? i reccoment Lightroom because all the usefull things (like levels, saturation, library management) are all laid out very nicely and in an easy to use fashion.

also, what output are you getting from your Olympus? when you're experienced you might find it beneficial to shoot in raw so that the camera doesn't do any "fiddling" with your image :)

glad you're enjoying your camera. i'm an Olympus man myself, (Film SLRs though)
 
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An eye for composition is something that will come naturally with time. Half of being a good photographer is looking at others' photos; look at the work of professionals, images that you know are good, and figure out why they're good. It's difficult to express in words, and even more difficult to apply universally (which is why so-called photographic "rules" are so useless) but you will increasingly see what works and what doesn't.

Also, avoid the crutch of processing. Processing is important but, as the oh-so charming adage goes, you can't polish a turd. Good, clear composition complemented by good processing is much better than sloppy composition accompanied by amazing processing.

Other than that: shoot, shoot, shoot. Take your camera everywhere. Buy a prime or two. Shoot, shoot and shoot some more. Get confident. Know your camera inside out. Shoot.
 
Thanks for all the replies, I will take the consensus of advice and just shoot shoot shoot :)

I will also try out the RAW mode.

I love this DSLR , I think its perfect for what I needed, but unfortunately they dont have the same availability of lenses as canon/nikon. They dont really have an equivalent to a "nifty fifty" in terms of value - the closest is a 35mm which has a much greater fstop and is still 120 pounds plus! Does anyone know of any other lenses that might be a suitable alternative to a nifty fifty?

Thanks.
 
sejjie said:
Thanks for all the replies, I will take the consensus of advice and just shoot shoot shoot :)

I will also try out the RAW mode.

I love this DSLR , I think its perfect for what I needed, but unfortunately they dont have the same availability of lenses as canon/nikon. They dont really have an equivalent to a "nifty fifty" in terms of value - the closest is a 35mm which has a much greater fstop and is still 120 pounds plus! Does anyone know of any other lenses that might be a suitable alternative to a nifty fifty?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

your olympus has a 2xFOVCF (http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Field-of-View-Crop-Factor.aspx) which means that a 35mm lens will have an effective focal length of 70mm, which is alright.

Sigma make lenses for Olympus SLRs, because they are a 4/3 partner.

unfortunately, there are no cheap primes for olympus dSLRs
the canon "nifty-fifty" has been in production for about 20 years, which is why it's so cheap.

anyway, photography is as big a money-sink as any other high-tech hobby, so be prepared to spend lots :(.

<edit>
here's a list of lenses that sigma make for your camera:
http://sigmaphoto.com/news/news.asp?nID=3291
 
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