Space geek new to forum!

epeddy1 · Jun 17, 2013

Hello all!

I'm not necessarily brand new to photography, but still a beginner and learning every time I pick up the camera. I'm an actuary by trade, and photography is and will always be a hobby for me. Not to downplay it, because photos are the key to keeping and sharing memories! A brief background of my experience:

I took a year of photography in high school so have some dark room experience. That's where I learned the "art" and "science" of photography. I especially enjoyed still life, structural, and landscape. Basically anything without people. Never really got into portrait. Back then I used a hand-me-down Minolta 35mm SLR. Our school was cheap, so everything was B&W. I did win a 1st place ribbon at a regional competition for an architectural shot!

Ever since then I've enjoyed being the go-to person in the family for photos of family events just using digital point-n-shoots. Nothing fancy really until a few years ago. That's when I got my first telescope and eventually started to dabble in astrophotography. I use both a webcam and DSLR for taking astro pics, and am still very early in my development in that realm. Still need tons of practice and better equipment! I belong to a more dedicated forum for questions on that (astronomyforum.net). Sometime soon I'll add some of my beginners work to this forum's albums. (In the meantime, got my best Jupiter shot as my avatar!)

So that brings me to joining this forum. Recently I started to get back into earthly photography. I will be a father very soon, and wanted to hone in on my skills so I can document his childhood before it's too late! So now I'm equipped with a Canon T3i. I have a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Canon kit 18-55mm, and Canon kit 70-200mm lenses.

In preparation over the past 8 months, I've had fun taking pictures of the dogs for baby portrait practice, along with other fun things like lightning, time-lapse, some telephoto shots at the zoo, macro snowflakes etc. I'm finding out that I should've gotten more serious about this hobby a long time ago!

I'm also learning how to use my Photoshop CS5 and Elements 9. Post-editing is essential for astrophotography, but brand spanking new for me as far as earthly photography. Who knew the endless possibilities that awaited? And I always thought of PS editing as just a way to eliminate red eye and make your kid look like a monster or something.

So as you can see, I'm not completely new. Understand exposure, etc. But am eager to learn, get some creative ideas, hone in on my skills, and expand my portfolio and experience. Look forward to exploring what this forum has to offer!

tirediron · Jun 17, 2013

Welcome to TPF- the image galleries below are a great place to post work for comments & critique (C&C) and to help learn your craft.

smalltowngirl13 · Jun 17, 2013

Hello and welcome to the forum!

IceCanAm · Jun 17, 2013

Welcome to the site.

epeddy1 · Feb 17, 2014

Follow up question: Which subforum is best for posting some beginner photos (not gallery quality) for some C&C?

spacefuzz · Feb 17, 2014

welcome

Aloicious · Feb 17, 2014

epeddy1 said:
Follow up question: Which subforum is best for posting some beginner photos (not gallery quality) for some C&C?

welcome, I'm a fellow space geek too. looking forward to seeing some pics (I like your Jupiter avatar BTW)

the galleries are the best place for C&C, they're not just for showing "gallery quality" type shots.

robbins.photo · Feb 17, 2014

epeddy1 said:
Hello all!

I'm not necessarily brand new to photography, but still a beginner and learning every time I pick up the camera. I'm an actuary by trade, and photography is and will always be a hobby for me. Not to downplay it, because photos are the key to keeping and sharing memories! A brief background of my experience:

I took a year of photography in high school so have some dark room experience. That's where I learned the "art" and "science" of photography. I especially enjoyed still life, structural, and landscape. Basically anything without people. Never really got into portrait. Back then I used a hand-me-down Minolta 35mm SLR. Our school was cheap, so everything was B&W. I did win a 1st place ribbon at a regional competition for an architectural shot!

Ever since then I've enjoyed being the go-to person in the family for photos of family events just using digital point-n-shoots. Nothing fancy really until a few years ago. That's when I got my first telescope and eventually started to dabble in astrophotography. I use both a webcam and DSLR for taking astro pics, and am still very early in my development in that realm. Still need tons of practice and better equipment! I belong to a more dedicated forum for questions on that (astronomyforum.net). Sometime soon I'll add some of my beginners work to this forum's albums. (In the meantime, got my best Jupiter shot as my avatar!)

So that brings me to joining this forum. Recently I started to get back into earthly photography. I will be a father very soon, and wanted to hone in on my skills so I can document his childhood before it's too late! So now I'm equipped with a Canon T3i. I have a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Canon kit 18-55mm, and Canon kit 70-200mm lenses.

In preparation over the past 8 months, I've had fun taking pictures of the dogs for baby portrait practice, along with other fun things like lightning, time-lapse, some telephoto shots at the zoo, macro snowflakes etc. I'm finding out that I should've gotten more serious about this hobby a long time ago!

I'm also learning how to use my Photoshop CS5 and Elements 9. Post-editing is essential for astrophotography, but brand spanking new for me as far as earthly photography. Who knew the endless possibilities that awaited? And I always thought of PS editing as just a way to eliminate red eye and make your kid look like a monster or something.

So as you can see, I'm not completely new. Understand exposure, etc. But am eager to learn, get some creative ideas, hone in on my skills, and expand my portfolio and experience. Look forward to exploring what this forum has to offer!

Welcome to the peanut gallery, and no, you don't actually have to post pictures of peanuts to join.. lol. Best advice I can give would be to do some research on composition. When I first got started I'll be completely honest and say that I had no idea how to properly compose a photograph. Granted I was getting to the stage where I had exposure down pretty well and my photographs weren't bad from a technical perspective, but they really lacked in the area of composition in particular. So that's what I'd recommend to start, there are tons of great articles, blog postings, etc on the subject that will give you a ton of information.