Is a Nikon D40 capable...

laylooo · Feb 13, 2008

of taking pictures such as the ones taken by Rachel Fellig on this thread?

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111612

I just received the D40 as a birthday present (so I'm a complete beginner), and I'm really wanting to take pictures like those!

XtremeElemenT · Feb 13, 2008

as a d40 owner myself, i can say that the d40 is capable of taking photos like that.

jols · Feb 13, 2008

i would agree.

its getting the location right and the light.

im am going to ask her some questions in a thread watch out for it

laylooo · Feb 13, 2008

that's good to hear!
I've been taking pictures of things in my room and it didn't come out so great, maybe I will have better luck taking pictures outdoors.

Sw1tchFX · Feb 13, 2008

No camera will make you into a good photographer. Crap photos are crap, good photos are good, regardless of the tool used.

Socrates · Feb 13, 2008

laylooo said:
of taking pictures such as the ones taken by Rachel Fellig on this thread?

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111612

I just received the D40 as a birthday present (so I'm a complete beginner), and I'm really wanting to take pictures like those!

Absolutely yes but you will need the correct lens. Note the "selective focus" in many of the shots. Subject crystal clear but background blurred. To do that, you need a lens that opens up fairly wide. Generally, this will not be a zoom lens. (You "zoom" by moving closer to or further frum the subject.) As a wild guess, I'm thinking that the lens was a 50 mm f/1.4 (US$350). You could probably do almost the same thing with the amateur version, the 50 mm f/1.8 (US$90).

Be forewarned that neither of these lenses will focus automatically on your camera. You need to rotate the ring yourself until the subject appears clear. The camera has an indicator that will confirm that the focus is correct.

Sw1tchFX · Feb 13, 2008

Socrates said:
Absolutely yes but you will need the correct lens. Note the "selective focus" in many of the shots. Subject crystal clear but background blurred. To do that, you need a lens that opens up fairly wide. Generally, this will not be a zoom lens. (You "zoom" by moving closer to or further frum the subject.) As a wild guess, I'm thinking that the lens was a 50 mm f/1.4 (US$350). You could probably do almost the same thing with the amateur version, the 50 mm f/1.8 (US$90).

Be forewarned that neither of these lenses will focus automatically on your camera. You need to rotate the ring yourself until the subject appears clear. The camera has an indicator that will confirm that the focus is correct.

A telephoto lens will give similar results as well at (often) more reasonable distances.

Socrates · Feb 13, 2008

Sw1tchFX said:
A telephoto lens will give similar results as well at (often) more reasonable distances.

Depending on what you mean by "reasonable," I pretty much agree. In my case, I have a 50mm f/1.4 lens for indoor portaits at roughly 8 feet and an 85mm f/1.8 for outdoor portraits at roughly twelve feet or so. (I never actually measured.) I wouldn't choose a zoom because the max aperture isn't sufficiently large.

Of course, in the digital age, I also have to mention that my camera has a DX-sized sensor (18X24).

Socrates · Feb 13, 2008

Sw1tchFX said:
No camera will make you into a good photographer. Crap photos are crap, good photos are good, regardless of the tool used.

I agree with your first sentence but not with the second. The quality of a photo is limited by both the ability of the photographer AND the capabilities of the tool.

Ask Ansel Adams to take a picture of a black cat on a coal pile at midnight. Give him a camera with no flash, one shutter speed (1/125), one aperture (f/22) and ASA/ISO 25. Of course, he's dead so it really doesn't matter but, hopefully, you see my point.

Helen B · Feb 13, 2008

Those pictures don't look like f/1.4 pictures - they more like f/3.5 to f/4 pictures.

What lens did you get? You can probably achieve the same depth of field with your lens, or near enough.

A decent photo editing program would be useful, in addition to the camera. What do you have, if anything, at the moment?

Good luck,
Helen

laylooo · Feb 13, 2008

on the lens, it says 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6 GII ED....
completely clueless to what those numbers mean

elemental · Feb 13, 2008

laylooo said:
on the lens, it says 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6 GII ED....
completely clueless to what those numbers mean

18-55mm is the range of focal lengths. When you rotate the lens to zoom in or out, this is the range it moves over. 18mm is the "zoomed out" end, which is a fairly wide angle shot (meaning if you were to draw lines extending on the edge of your field of view, they would meet at a fairly wide angle- think of this as "zoomed out"). 55mm is the "zoomed in" end, which is fairly close to what we perceive as "normal." Different lenses offer different focal lengths. A 50-200mm, for example, starts at about the zoomed in end of your lens and zooms in even further. This is the great part of digital SLRs- there's a lens for everything.

1:3.5-5.6 is the aperture range. This determines how wide the lens opens, meaning how much light it lets in. The lower the number, the larger the aperture an the more light gets in, meaning shorter shutter times. The reason smaller numbers correspond to larger opening is that the number is actually a ratio- in this case, f/3.5 means the aperture opening is 1/3.5 the size of the focal length (obviously larger than 1/5.6 or 1/22). The reason this is a range is it will go to f/3.5 at the 18mm end, but as you zoom in, the minimum gets higher, up to f/5.6. You can always set higher than this (smaller opening) at any focal length.

This is probably very confusing now, but I can't think of a better way to explain. If I am wrong about anything, I am sure someone will correct me (I got my first DSLR less than a year ago, so I'm pretty new as well). The implications of aperture are significantly more subtle than focal length, and will take a lot more explaining and experimenting, but that's the general idea.

Helen B · Feb 13, 2008

You will not be able to get exactly the same depth of field and angle of view that you see in Rachel's pictures. You can get the same angle of view, but at a smaller aperture.

The aperture is the 1:3.5-5.6 number - 1:3.5 (also written as f/3.5) and 1:5.6 (also written as f/5.6) are apertures. 1/3.5 is larger than 1/5.6, of course. These are the maximum apertures the lens is capable of.

The aperture being the size of the 'hole' in the lens that the light gets through. The smaller the aperture the more is in focus.

Your lens is an f/3.5 lens at 18 mm focal length (the wide end of the zoom) and an f/5.6 lens at 55 mm (the narrow, or tele, end of the zoom).

The best way to understand this is to go out and take some pictures. Look at how the depth of field changes as you change the aperture and the focal length (zoom) of the lens.

If you wanted shallower depth of field (less in focus, subject more isolated) then you might look into getting the 50 mm f/1.8 lens, or the 18-70 AF-S zoom. The 50 would give you shallower DoF than you see in Rachels' pictures but you would have to use manual focus with focus assist. The 18-70 is a good all-round lens that I often use on my D40x. It would give you about the same DoF and angle of view you see in the pictures you link to. Lenses can always be 'stopped down' to give more depth of field than they give at their maximum aperture.

As already explained, Rachel's pictures are not just about the lens and the camera. Lighting, exposure, composition, relationship with the subject and post-processing all come into it.

Best,
Helen