Gday from straya!

[markmo]

Hello all,

I recently picked up a Nikon D3300 with the 18-55mm lens kit and am now on the long journey on learning how to use it properly. I previously have only ever had camera phones so having an actual camera is something very new to me.

I plan on using it mainly for landscape shots and some rock climbing photos too. I'm thinking about getting a 50mm and/or a 70-300mm in the near future but i figure its probably better to practice with what i have rather than add more bits to confuse myself with.

Can anyone help me out with how to make a photo like this not look so dark? https://flic.kr/p/oLJ83W
You should be able to see some of my other photos with that link too.

Mark

 

[Designer]

The meter has read for the sky. You could go to spot metering and aim at the dark foreground, and that would no doubt blow out the sky, but you would get a better exposure on the foreground. Another option is to dial in some "plus" exposure compensation which would have the same effect.

Shooting directly into the sun like that will be problematic, so some people purchase a graduated neutral density filter (GND) which has a shaded side and an unshaded side. position the shaded side up in this case to shade out the bright sky and get a good exposure on the foreground.

 

[Derrel]

On a shot like that the general idea these days is to shoot in raw mode, and then in software, to "lift the shadows" to a brighter rendering. Nikon cameras are very good at that capability, and newer software is also very good at allowing users to perform such a task with minimal hassle. The scene has a wide overall tonal range, so, it's necessary to adjust the scene's lighting after the capture, when using ONE-shot capture methods, instead of multiple, bracketed exposures which are later merged into a single image.

 

[markmo]

Thanks for the help guys, i've switched to shooting raw and purchased Lightroom. Now i have another thing to learn.

 

[hamlet]

Also try to not shoot above f5.6 when you can. As you close your aperture more and more, you will start to lose sharpness. Beyond f8 it will start to become noticeable and you picture will look soft like it wasn't in focus.


Here is a lightroom edit i did

I actually think that this is a very good start.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Welcome aboard Mark...

 

[IceCanAm]

Welcome to the site.

 

[markmo]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone! I ended up getting the 70-300 lens and i have been enjoying messing around with it. It has forced me to spend a large amount of time researching depth of field.

Here are a couple of shots that i took today, would love to hear what people think of them

DSC_0069 by markmodotnet, on Flickr

DSC_0064 by markmodotnet, on Flickr

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Welcome to the forum and I hope you're enjoying your new camera!

The first image of the bee is good In my opinion, however the two flowers in the bottom right are very distracting and I would consider excluding extra stimuli like that in later shoots. I would take this opportunity to experiment with the clone tool in photoshop however; you could easily rid images of distractions like that by copying other areas of the image over them. I'm sure there are some cloning tutorials on here somewhere but I don't have a link on hand right now.

edit: here is a very simple one for now: http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/photoshop/tool/clone.html