I do NOT like snow at all! Especially when there's too much of it, pics from a few years back:









Sorry, my photos are less artsy, more about just capturing the moment.

nomead wrote:Sorry, my photos are less artsy, more about just capturing the moment.

Don't worry about that... just seeing that amount of snow is something most of us in the UK arn't used to, lots more worthwhile than poncy pictures in my mind

Jani, I can shoot my 300 down to 1/125, 1/80th if I want to get panning shots. I don't loose much sharpness at f/5.6, any lens will be best at f/11, but if it means hte difference between getting a shot and not, have a go, you won't loose anything. Memory space is free... Practise is the only way to get a steady hand (which I havn't yet) and a feel for the kit.

I may have posted this before, can't remember ...



I love snow!

Tom

Yeah Tom I've seen that before, probably in the calender thread? Wicked snap.

jtbo wrote:If I recall right it was calculated somehow like 55mm would be safe for shake at 1/55 but any slower shutter speed and it would be easy to get shake blur. For 200mm that would be 1/200 which needs pretty good light for F8, imo.

What you've read is a good guideline, but you'll find with practice and good technique, you can probably almost halve that, I have shot at 135mm hand held at 1/80, and it was sharp.

also, bare in mind that those calculations are based on film focal lengths, so a digital camera, with a 1.5x crop, you're actually talking about a lens that shoots up to 450mm!

For a 300mm lens, you REALLY need to get a tripod, or atleast a beanbag!

Edit: A couple of my more recent ones

Fantastic pics as always, Dave! Checked out some on your flickr and your Edinburgh zoo ones are cool - must pay a visit next time I'm that way

As I said on Flickr, I love that beach pic dude, it's awesome.

At next weekend I will receive that new lens of mine, will see how shaky shots I can make with it

This one is taken with tripod, beginning of September this year, I still haven't found out how to make focus good when I can't see nothing from eye piece and from LCD it is impossible to spot something such small:


This one is 1.1 seconds from free hand, it is tad blurry:
http://jtbo.pp.fi/images/house/evening.jpg

Yeah, that beach shot is great

Jani, surly in such situations you set manual focus to infinity, no? Nice lighting on the house photo BTW, and not too blurry for over a second freehand.

To get a steady freehand shot, there's a useful shooting technique. Take a deep breath, then exhale, and take the shot (with gun or camera ) without inhaling. It's surprising how much breathing moves your arms about...

New canon lenses don't have any marks as to where infinity is I reckon my 75-300 is like my mates MF lenses too, it seems to be able to focus past infinity. Jani.. if you find the answer let me know!

Yes, setting focus to infinity is what one have to do, but with Nikkor AF 18-55mm DX objective it is not so easy, there are no markings for infinity, also infinity is not at end of adjustment range, that is rather annoying problem with that lens.

I was actually using that very technique which you described MJ, very useful in shooting indeed

Why would you need to focus on anything further away than infinity

Don't bother explaining any complex technical reasons, to do with distances between reflectors in different lenses or whatever

That's the advantage of a compact/SLR crossover camera, most of the manual features, without too much overly technical stuff - suits my skill level

MJ wrote:Why would you need to focus on anything further away than infinity

Don't bother explaining any complex technical reasons, to do with distances between reflectors in different lenses or whatever

That's the advantage of a compact/SLR crossover camera, most of the manual features, without too much overly technical stuff - suits my skill level

They just did make lens wrong, they put infinity tad before far right end of adjustment, it is instead somewhere between middle and far right

Some other lenses are much better in this area

Jani, pick something like a tree or a house that's over 15m away (for 55mm), focus on that, then flick the switch to manual, it will keep its infinity focus setting, as long as you don't move the ring.

I got my new lens today, it is great as infinity is at end of adjustment range, also stars do show up in different colours now

Got this right when sun did set, so it was not possible to get decent light shots.

Would give arm and half leg for auto tracking mount, all I get is stripes at the moment, needs some adjustments. Weather is perfect, btw.

This is 8 seconds at 70mm, copied straight from camera, just converted RAW file to JPG, I just took this photo, will go out hunt for more
http://jtbo.pp.fi/images/image/house/DSC_1557.JPG

Edit: Oh yes, someone has broken street lamps, so it is very dark out there