New Photographer - Help request - Dawn sea swim Ireland

[SuperKario]

Hi all,

I have a Nikon d3100 in hand, with two available lenses, the 18-55mm kit lens and a 50mm lens.

Being the decent human being that I am I have volunteered to take few pics of friends as they throw themselves into the freezing irish sea at sunrise tomorrow morning.

The location is on a concrete walkway

Now conditions here for those who don't know will be one of:
1) Very low sun, possibly clear weather, low light
2) Partially cloudy as in the above picture
3) Raining to varying degrees, (probably can't take pictures in this weather

So with my camera and basically no knowledge of what i'm at, although i've spent the morning learning about the camera, is there any chance that some decent passerby would give me some pointers for taking some halfway decent pictures (for points 1 & 2 above)?

I've been reading about the terms f stop, aperature, shutter speed etc and i'm getting a bit overwhelmed

 

[tirediron]

There's every chance, however it may be a bit of a challenge due to your lack of experience. That said, nothing ventured, nothing gained... right?

As far as conditions go, unless it's overcast where the sun is rising, do your best to keep the sun at your back, otherwise the subjects will be backlit and essentially black blobs. Unless it's really raining, I wouldn't worry too much about it; you can always make a 'camera condom' out of a clear, grocery-store vegetable bag.

Lenses... go with the '50. I assume it's the 1.8 which means it's several stops faster than your kit lens, and only 5mm shorter; you're unlikely to need the wide end.

Settings... I would set your camera to Manual ("M"), and your AF mode to single point, and single-servo AF mode (refer to your manual for details on how to do this) and use a single focusing point in the middle of the viewfinder. Set your shutter speed to 1/125 (you can go as low as 1/60 if you're completely confident in your ability to hold the camera steady, otherwise, 1/125 should be fast enough to prevent any movement blur). Set your aperture for around f2 - 2.8 (what we want to do is get as much light onto the sensor as possible. Now, set your ISO to around 2000 and raise/lower it until you get a satisfactory exposure. As the light increases, reduce your ISO to avoid over-exposure. I would avoid auto-ISO as it may increase the ISO to undesirable/unnecessary levels, and induce more sensor noise than necessary.

There are a number of ways to approach this task, but given your gear, and experience, this is my recommendation to you. Good luck and be sure to post a few images to show us how it went. This is a challenging scenario for any photographer with any gear, but I think you should be able to turn in some decent results.

 

[RVT1K]

Based on your self-confessed lack of skills and experience I would go the opposite route and advocate using the Auto mode for everything.

My first digital camera was a D40 and simply letting it do its thing worked out well in many situations.

 

[SuperKario]

There's every chance, however it may be a bit of a challenge due to your lack of experience. That said, nothing ventured, nothing gained... right?

As far as conditions go, unless it's overcast where the sun is rising, do your best to keep the sun at your back, otherwise the subjects will be backlit and essentially black blobs. Unless it's really raining, I wouldn't worry too much about it; you can always make a 'camera condom' out of a clear, grocery-store vegetable bag.

Lenses... go with the '50. I assume it's the 1.8 which means it's several stops faster than your kit lens, and only 5mm shorter; you're unlikely to need the wide end.

Settings... I would set your camera to Manual ("M"), and your AF mode to single point, and single-servo AF mode (refer to your manual for details on how to do this) and use a single focusing point in the middle of the viewfinder. Set your shutter speed to 1/125 (you can go as low as 1/60 if you're completely confident in your ability to hold the camera steady, otherwise, 1/125 should be fast enough to prevent any movement blur). Set your aperture for around f2 - 2.8 (what we want to do is get as much light onto the sensor as possible. Now, set your ISO to around 2000 and raise/lower it until you get a satisfactory exposure. As the light increases, reduce your ISO to avoid over-exposure. I would avoid auto-ISO as it may increase the ISO to undesirable/unnecessary levels, and induce more sensor noise than necessary.

There are a number of ways to approach this task, but given your gear, and experience, this is my recommendation to you. Good luck and be sure to post a few images to show us how it went. This is a challenging scenario for any photographer with any gear, but I think you should be able to turn in some decent results.

Wow! Thank you so much for this advice. I've been playing with the camera and both lenses all day and definitely prefer the 50mm at the minute. I've been getting some great shots, even backlit

Playing around with the settings today I think I can follow all the advice you've given. I will certainly return with some shots

 

[tirediron]

Based on your self-confessed lack of skills and experience I would go the opposite route and advocate using the Auto mode for everything.

My first digital camera was a D40 and simply letting it do its thing worked out well in many situations.

While that's sound advice in most circumstances, the OP's situation is one, which IMO, calls for a bit more care. The concerns I would have with going "full auto" are that the shutter-speed could get too low to safely hand-hold, or the ISO could be excessively high. I suspect that with their limited experience, the OP will likely be paying more attention to the scene than settings.

Using aperture priority (AP), could work as well.

One last point OP - shoot in RAW+JPG; even if you don't have software right now to deal with raw files, the amount of latitude you have for correction with them over a .jpg could be beneficial down the road.

 

[tirediron]

[I've been getting some great shots, even backlit

Just to manage expectations, while that is a backlit image to be sure, it's not quite the same as the situation you'll be facing in the morning. Here you've got lots of light bouncing off light coloured walls and filling in.

 

[weepete]

I'd go with Tirediron's advice, though personally I'd sacrifice more ISO and bump up the shutter speed to 1/200th and auto ISO. Get loads of entry shots, though the exit ones will probably be better as they should be facing you.

 

[RVT1K]

Based on your self-confessed lack of skills and experience I would go the opposite route and advocate using the Auto mode for everything.

My first digital camera was a D40 and simply letting it do its thing worked out well in many situations.

While that's sound advice in most circumstances, the OP's situation is one, which IMO, calls for a bit more care. The concerns I would have with going "full auto" are that the shutter-speed could get too low to safely hand-hold, or the ISO could be excessively high. I suspect that with their limited experience, the OP will likely be paying more attention to the scene than settings.

Using aperture priority (AP), could work as well.

One last point OP - shoot in RAW+JPG; even if you don't have software right now to deal with raw files, the amount of latitude you have for correction with them over a .jpg could be beneficial down the road.

One of the things I like about this forum is the tremendous eagerness to help that exists among the members.

My advice was based on my experiences working in a very technical field and sometimes having to explain things to very non-technical people. I also had to train prison guards in the operation of security equipment for a past job.

If you start piling on lots of details, you quickly loose the audience. So since the OP seemed to be more interested in getting some shots of his friends as opposed to "teach me photography", I felt the very abbreviated approach would serve him best.

Every bit of advice you gave was good and showed the spirit I mentioned above.