Experimenting with my camera

Harpper · Apr 12, 2004

Since I finally was able to get my Nikon D70, I decided to experiment with shots I couldn't do with my Toshiba. The first picture was more of a test shot to see how well it captures colors. My tripod couldn't go low enough for that angle so I had to take it handheld and leaning in an akward position. I think it might have come out sharper if it were tripod mounted. The other two shots I've been dying to try out but couldn't on my Toshiba.

terri · Apr 13, 2004

Well, I'd say the shots worked. :wink:

Those look like my Prismacolor art pencils up there, fat and waxy.

I like your B&W, but the guitar shot is dreamy. Love it!!

Harpper · Apr 13, 2004

Thanks terri. I appreciate the comments. The colored pencils are actually Crayola smooth bright colored pencils. I like b&w pencil sketching more than colored pencils so I went for cheapo just to try out color. On the plus side they are non toxic so if I'm feeling too lazy to go to the grocery store I can use them as a quick snack....I've got to get my money's worth out of them. :wink:

As for the guitar picture, I was definitely trying to go for a dark, mysterious, or dream like picture. I'm glad to know it worked for you. Thanks for looking.

andre_gwynt · Apr 13, 2004

Excelent shots, I like the water most. Probably because I always take fast moving objects and always come out blurry...

Patrick · Apr 13, 2004

Gotta love that D70.
Amazing isn't it?

Harpper · Apr 13, 2004

Patrick said:
Gotta love that D70.
Amazing isn't it?

It is a great camera but for me it was more of going from a very simplistic point & shot to an SLR camera. Higher end point & shots do have some manual settings and some get very close to SLR like in features and abilities but they still lacked the full manual features I wanted. I did like the fact that I had to try twice as hard to get conditions perfect like lighting. This forced me to learn a lot about lighting because the Toshiba would definitely punish me with horrible pictures if I didn't get the conditions almost perfect.

With the SLR there is a handful of manual settings that allow me to shot in less than ideal lighting. Also the ability to use a "faster" lenses like a 50mm prime helps with low lighting problems. The extra boatload of features from an SLR camera just gives me so many different ways to shot a picture.

For example, the last two pictures turn out really different on my Toshiba. I'm not necessarily talking about image quality because my Toshiba definitely can take good pictures as long as you know its limitations. For example, since the Toshiba doesn't let me adjust shutter speed or aperture I'm very limited to the type of shot I can make. If the picture doesn't turn out the way I want it then I'm kind of screwed because the Toshiba doesn't really allow me to change the settings much. The only other way is to change the conditions in the environment but that's not always possible or convenient to do so.

I do need to mention that my Toshiba is a very low end point & shot and it's very old. The newer generation of point & shots are very good but they still lack the full range of manual features found on film and digital SLRs. It all depends on whether you really need or use the extra features from an SLR.

It's been repeated several times before on this forum by several people but I'll mention it again. It's the person behind the camera that really counts. If I leave my Nikon D70 on full auto it only takes average looking pictures or it doesn't produced the picture I invisioned in my head.