Say No to Green - (Get off Auto)

No this is not a political statement. What I'm saying is get off the green mode on your camera. See that picture to the right? That's the last and only time I've had my camera in Auto and only because it came that way.
So why am I hating on Auto? well to be blunt Auto is lazy! You're leaving your picture choices (save composition) up to a bunch of engineers, who have tried to think of the "one size fits all" solution to photographs. This takes your ability to create and throws it out the window. In later posts we'll see how the "one size fits all" mantra is applied in many different areas of our DSLRs, and how we need to take control of the camera back from the engineers who built and programmed them.  I'll describe each mode later in more detail, but for now I want you to swear that you'll never shoot in Auto again! You've got a DSLR, one of the most amazing and versatile  pieces of electronic awesomeness in your hands. Why are you using it like a $100 point and shoot? You bought this so you could take better shots than with your old P&S so don't be afraid to turn that little dial, and make some magic.
No Fear!!

Getting to know your Camera (aka: RTM)

What and where is the "Command Dial"? How many "Image Recording Options" are there?
You don't know? Well then read the manual!!(RTM) Answers are found on pg. 13 & pg. 85

I know how dare I tell you to read the manual, as a guy I'm supposed to just know how it works or be able to figure it out on my own, that's what tough guys do right? Well maybe you're (I'm) not tough(Even though I like to think that I am), or even a guy for that matter. But this is a complicated piece of gear and it has a million and one options in it that will have subtle to profound effects on your photography, so you really need to understand what's going on in the camera and how to influence it.
The easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to learn those things is by reading the manual.  I've found it best to just take it one section at a time and to have the camera there with me to push the buttons, see the menus, and click options on and off.  I learn best by doing and that helps it sink into my thick head. I know manuals aren't the best literary specimens. They can boring, dry, and technical but hey it's free, and it's written by the same people that made the camera.  Also it's small enough you can and should keep it with your camera in whatever bag you use.
After reading the manual however if you still feel a little lost overwhelmed or undereducated about your camera I would highly suggest looking into checking out from your local library or buying a book written specifically for the D7000, such a list can be found here. I've actually been reading this book as it's the only one I could find at our local Barnes and Noble store since our local Borders closed down last month. But I'm really enjoying it. These books are your camera manual only in glorious color with photography tips, examples, and hints.  A big plus is that they are written from a photographer/users point of view as opposed to an engineers view. This means they're easier to understand and look better. The drawback is they cost money (unless you go to the library) and they're a bit bigger, although some of the options look like they'll be able to be carried into the field with you, most however haven't been published yet so keep looking, it seems that most of them should be out by late summer 2011.
Ok that was a really boring post and I apologize but first things first, start to learn what your controls are so we can start to use them to create images, and have them look how we want them to. We'll get started on doing just that in the next post.
Now get reading!

A Tale of Two Cameras

In my previous post I touched upon the events that led to my aquisition of my first DSLR the Nikon D7000. I wanted to complete the tale since it didn't end with the exciting yet painful swipe of the credit card at the register.
As I mentioned my wife called me on March 18 and told me to go get the camera, Her resoning and mine included these factors: 1 - The camera was on sale and the price could go up due to the tragedy Japan had just experienced. 2 - The time it would take for me to save up enough money to actually buy a full frame DSLR camera was going to take a few more years at least and the cost would be at least twice that of this package for a body alone (my dream was to eventually buy the D800 or whatever it will be called when released). So we decided that I'd buy the D7000 now, learn how to use a DSLR well, and then in the future hopefully I'd be able to upgrade and then have two great cameras. And lets face it after almost 4 years of waiting I was out of patience!
I had to work that evening but I was able to stop by the nearest Costco on my way home and I picked up the Nikon D7000 camera pack which included everything you see here: Not too shabby a package, a bit more than the standard one you'd get at someplace like Bestbuy. I also picked up a double pack of 8GB Sandisk Ultra II cards which were also on sale.
Now in addition to the reasons I talked about before I picked this particular package for a few additional reasons.
First was the price of the camera with a lens, however this package included the venerable Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VR II lens which is a much better lens than the standard 18-105mm kit lens that is usually boxed with the camera, and Costco was running a $250 instant rebate. Second Costco has a great return policy and is a trusted vendor for me, I love that store and I've never been dissapointed when I've had to return something or have it repaired.
 So happy day for me right?... Well it didn't take long for me to realize that the camera was quite a bit different from my old point and shoot, now I've used SLR's and DSLR's before but having my own to use and fiddle with was an exhilarating and somewhat daunting experience, however when I opened my first photos on the computer I immediately noticed that they were a bit soft. I'm not one to jump to instant conclusions especially since this could be operator error, so I made a few more shots at different f/stops, focal ranges, iso's etc all on a tripod and still I was not very impressed. So I searched online for any similar problems and was surprised at the number of complaints I found about the focusing on the D7000, now I'm not going to go into detail about what those problems are, just google it and follow some links and you'll get the jist of it pretty quickly, suffice it to say most of it is over hyped and of various causes, the main one is that the D7000 has a high resolution sensor that shows everything, including lens imperfections! And lenses are not perfect, especially kit zoom lenses. In any case I soon found out about the autofocus fine tune option and how to use a focus chart and ran some tests using the scale.
 Ouch! I had some very serious back focus, meaning the lens would focus on the area behind what I was aiming at regardless of aperture. I had to dial in a compensation of -12 just to get it close. Now I really doubt it was the camera that was off, my first 18-200mm was extremely stiff out of the box, I remember being surprised at how hard it was to mount onto the camera and to zoom it when I first tried it and although it loosened up a bit over the week it was never what I would call silky smooth. I truly believe that the lens itself was mostly at fault, in any case after worrying about it for a week I returned the camera to Costco and grabbed another one, the return was smooth and trouble free, I didn't get a replacement over the return counter, instead I walked back into the store and up to the display and just grabbed the box and placed it in my cart. Well I must have looked pretty cavalier about the whole thing because a lady standing nearby just started to laugh and said "That's crazy, you just walked right up to that and put it in your basket!" I chuckled and smiled and said "Yep, pretty cool huh?" I didn't have time to explain I was just exchanging it and I think she'll have a fun little story to share out of it.
I got the camera home and had enough time to charge the battery and take it outside for a test drive just before the sun set. Oh glorious golden hour light, I went into the backyard and started firing off a few shots of various objects at different focal lengths and apertures, the zoom of this lens was much smoother, and the focusing sounds seemed less labored and  a bit quicker. Just as I was about to run inside to view the shots on the computer my daughter decided to come out and see what I was doing so I used her as a model while she played in that wonderful light, and I'm proud to say I got a few keepers of her and did some nice testing in a very dynamic situation; various light/shadow levels and motion all wrapped up in one. The results I viewed in the computer were much better than before and I feel like I'll be just fine. I ran a test using the focus chart and I still saw a bit of backfocus but it was slight and a small AF fine tune of -2 seems to be plenty to correct it.AS of today rumor has it that Nikon will be releasing a firmware update to fix backfocusing issues on the D7000 check here for firmware updates
Unfortunately it's been snowing or raining here ever since I got the camera so I haven't had a chance to really run it through its paces. Also I'm waiting on a ballhead for my new tripod but that's for another post coming up soon. I'll leave the story here and say I'm glad I've got a working camera and lens and from here on out we'll be experimenting, shooting, learning and sharing.
Happy Shooting!

Digital Beginnings

Every Blog needs a beginning and so I've chosen to start this one at the beginning of my digital photography experience. To learn a little bit more about me please see my About Me page.

It was early fall 2003, I had just finished making it through radiation treatment for Thyroid cancer and we had welcomed our second child into our family when I realized that life was too precious and short to be so cavalier in my photo habits, which basically was that of the occasional snapshot with a cheap auto 35mm film camera, that fact along with the expense of buying and developing film and paying extra for a picture CD when I already had a computer and Photoshop, it became painfully clear that I needed to upgrade into the modern age.

Enter my first digital camera, a piece of junk so bad that I returned it the next day and can't even remember what it was called or who made it. I should interject here the fact that we are a less then wealthy family and having just had a baby and cancer, funds were to say the least... tight. It was nearing the Christmas shopping season and I was in Walmart and stumbled upon a deal I couldn't resist - brace yourself - a 3.2 megapixel Kodak for ~$100! I took the plunge and I'm proud to say with that humble beginning I've never looked back.

Have you ever been to an airshow? Typically they will have a heritage flight made up of some aircraft legends spanning from WWII to the present (check my flickr stream for a few shots of an airshow we had at Hill AFB in 2008)

Well here's my Digital Camera heritage shot:

From humble beginnings to awesome

Here's a brief breakdown from left to right:

-Kodak EasyShare CX 4310

Optical Sensor Resolution: 3.2 MP

Optical zoom: None

Maximum Aperture Range:fixed F/3.5

Lens 36mm equivalent

LCD Panel Size: 1.6 in

LCD Screen Resolution: 48,000 pixels

Pretty hot stuff right? Well after about a year and a half I upgraded now knowing what I needed in a camera ie: everything this camera didn't have, however funds were still limited so enter camera #2

Kodak EasyShare Z750

5.0 megapixels

Lens- 5.5–21.8 mm (35 mm equivalent: 33–132 mm)

Zoom- 4X optical zoom

Aperture- f/2.8–5.6 (wide); f/4.8–9.5 (tele)

Shutter speed- automatic: 1/8–1/2000 sec.; manual: 64–1/1000 sec

LCD- 2.2 in. (5.6 cm) TFT, 153K pixel resolution

Video capability

This camera is the one that really opened up possibilities to me. I used it for everything, snapshots, portraits (poorly), video, and even in some astrophotography. With its manual controls I could take star trail shots, and even some Afocal pictures of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn through my telescope. This camera was worked to death and after almost three years the lens started to have some trouble opening so I started to look for another camera, still limited on funds and now knowing that manual controls were absolutely necessary, and wanting something with a decent long shutter speed for my astrophotography I found that cost and my requirements were starting to diverge more than I would have liked.

Enter a chance visit to Sears, now I don't usually go there but I saw an ad in a Sunday newspaper in 2007 that Sears was having a camera sale and the next day I decided to just go and check it out, I had a list of 3 or 4 cameras I was interested in. It just so happened that they had on sale that day one of those cameras, this one was the most expensive one I had on my list but was on sale for a very affordable $130! Enter my workhorse for the last three and a half years.

The Canon Powershot A720IS

8.0 Megapixel

Lens Focal Length: 5.8-34.8mm (35mm film equivalent: 35-210mm)

Aperture: f/2.8-4.8

6x Optical Zoom

Exposure range of 1/2000 - 15 sec

And as I found out later that night the ability to run a firmware hack called CHDK which I found as I searched online for any information on a way to increase that maximum exposure from 15 sec to 30 sec for my astrophotography. While learning about CHDK I was exposed to the fact that CHDK expanded the cameras abilities not only in exposure range but gave me full manual override of every aspect of the camera, including but not limited to the ability to run scripts that would enable such features as RAW capture,an Intervalometer, motion detection - including the ability to catch lightning! And most profoundly bracketing controls for HDR, which led me to flickr, exposure to stunning imagery, forums, groups, friendships, photowalks, etc, and the rest as they say is history.

I've been an unapologetic photo junkee ever since! And after absorbing so much information from reading video tutorials, podcasts, and lots and lots of books, the means (3 years of waiting) and opportunity (a Costco sale) to aquire a "real" camera arrived. On March 18, 2011 the general fund manager of our home (aka: my lovely wife) said "Honey go get that camera."

More on all that in the next post.