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Fun with a Canon 7D

Archive: 18 posts

I doubt many of you have seen a 14 year old walking about with a DSLR camera slung over his shoulder. Well, that's me.

A few weeks ago I got hold of a fancy new DSLR camera. My family isn't very rich, and the camera isn't fully in my ownership. But I'm the one who uses it the most. A few walks around the place, and I had a couple of photos I was genuinely proud of.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0033_zps4f3dd8cb.jpg

The flowers in this picture are fake. Yeah.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0034_zpsf09112af.jpg

But these potted plants are real! Yay.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0053_zps1148d2c6.jpg

That's a bridge, in Brisbane.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0054_zpse453aa55.jpg

And that's some building they're taking apart for some reason.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0087_zps463f5c1c.jpg

That's a random flowery thing.

These pictures are some of the few I feel are worth showing. I got quite a lot that are just rubbish.

In case you're wondering, I used a Canon eOS 7D camera with a 50mm 1:1.4 lens for all of the pictures. I know the lens seems kinda unsuitable for some of them, but a lens costs hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars, and we've only got that one at the moment.

Don't ask me about any of the settings and stuff. I'm a noob.		2013-04-05 06:56:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

Great pics 2013-04-05 18:29:00

Author:
avundcv
Posts: 2526

Very good pictures here A great eye for a good picture. One thing to note would be to try and get the right focus, like in the last picture the focus is more on the background leaves than the forefront flower which I presume was meant to be the subject of the picture. Not that they're bad pictures, by all means they're great, just some food for thought when taking future pictures to further enhance them 2013-04-05 19:48:00

Author:
craigmond
Posts: 2426

Great resolution, great depth of field, a quality camera. Next you should get inexpensive photo editing software for some aesthetic manipulation.2013-04-06 12:55:00

Author:
Ironface
Posts: 432

Very good pictures here A great eye for a good picture. One thing to note would be to try and get the right focus, like in the last picture the focus is more on the background leaves than the forefront flower which I presume was meant to be the subject of the picture. Not that they're bad pictures, by all means they're great, just some food for thought when taking future pictures to further enhance them

My focus isn't really good. Am noob. Thanks for the suggestion though.


Great resolution, great depth of field, a quality camera. Next you should get inexpensive photo editing software for some aesthetic manipulation.

Yah, it's the best camera I've ever played around with. Any suggestions for good, free image manipulation software? 		2013-04-06 22:42:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

Don't those DSLR's have some way to connect it to your computer and shoot pictures from there? Or remotes?

For my stop-motion work i really need a GOOD cheap camera that can be connected to my PC to shoot pictures, or can be used with remotes.

But, i can't find one.		2013-04-07 17:36:00

Author:
Woutery
Posts: 793

Not too sure about free software, I'm sure there are good online photo editors and I'd imagine an older version of Photoshop Elements would only be $20 or so, and it wouldn't be so different to the later versions. If you just like to stick a pretty filter on things, there's iPhoto for Macs and I'm sure there are other free to download things that are simple and pretty-making.2013-04-08 15:14:00

Author:
Ironface
Posts: 432

Nice photos mate I was given a Cannon 1000D not long back (they didn't use it anymore so gave it to me) I very quickly learnt that photography is really hard! lol.


Great resolution, great depth of field, a quality camera. Next you should get inexpensive photo editing software for some aesthetic manipulation.
I completely agree with this, if you don't want to spend money, I'm sure there are plenty a free programs out there. You lose nothing from trying them so see what looks good and test it out, if it's not what you want move onto another.

A quick tip I wish someone had told me when I first picked up the camera is to become good friends with the histogram, any camera worth its salt will have one.
http://cdn.cambridgeincolour.com/images/tutorials/hist_examplehist.png

Put simply, generally you want to keep the tonal range somewhere in the middle. The far left and far right sides of the histogram indicate pixels that are pure black (R0,G0,B0) and pure white (R255,G255,B255) respectively.

These are the histograms for 2 of your photos.
http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab311/SR20DETDOG/Histograms_zps0308c9f3.gif
You can see for the photo of the flowers there is a huge spike to the right, this is from parts of the background being pure white. In these areas there is no texture any more and even editing software won't bring back any texture here.

The photo of the building however covers a very broad range of tones, tending towards darker colours but dropping away before it reaches pure black/white. Unlike the photo of the flowers there's nice texture and detail throughout the entire photo.

Neither one is wrong or right, it's all about how you want the end product to look, but it's good to know.		2013-04-10 00:43:00

Author:
SR20DETDOG
Posts: 2431

Nice photos mate I was given a Cannon 1000D not long back (they didn't use it anymore so gave it to me) I very quickly learnt that photography is really hard! lol. ...

Oh, I always wondered what that histogram thingy was for. Well, the whole photography thing is really new to me, and it's pretty surprising to see how many tiny little details there are in everything to do with it. Thanks for clearing up a few things, and you're clearly far better at all this than I am.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0255_zpsf2bc7ba7.jpg

I seem to only be much good at taking pictures of stationary things.		2013-04-10 07:53:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

Thanks for clearing up a few things, and you're clearly far better at all this than I am.

Haha, not as much as you might think! Most of what I know comes from working with Photoshop not photography 		2013-04-10 08:22:00

Author:
SR20DETDOG
Posts: 2431

Glad to see you got the shutter bug!

You can spend years with a single lens learning its abilities and limitations and never really hit a technical wall. When you do, there are cheap extenders and other amazing tricks you can do with your existing lens. Photography is a joy of neverending learning and experimentation. It turns every trip to the post office, every walk to the corner, every boring car trip into an endless series of creative moments. The mundane is beautiful. You get that eye, like people do after months of playing in LBP, where your interactions in the real world become "I could shoot/build/create X in the camera."

As you've already discovered, sometimes you can shoot a hundred photos and only get 1 or 2 good ones. That's absolutely good. You can take comfort in the fact that the best photographers under the best conditions regularly settle for 1 good shot out of 30, 100, 500 or more. There's also nothing wrong with taking 10 minutes to frame a perfect shot, shoot it, and move on, but "excess shooting" has always been a mark of professional photography, not just for backup, not just because professionals embraced the "failure" to "success" ratio (by not thinking of it that way), but because they could afford it. Until digital came along, only professionals could afford to "waste" rolls of film. Now the playing field is level for all photographers. There is no cost to shoot or develop, so there is no waste. Everyone can afford to take endless photos, and should do it all the time! In 2012 I took 12,000 photos. My camera's counter ticked up to 9999 and started over, it didn't have an extra column to keep track! My selection of favorite photos from that entire year? About 250 images. (http://rbsite.byethost16.com/bnt-04.htm) That's almost 500 throwaways for every "good" shot, and when I look at them all together I want to throw away half of those anyway. Yet, I feel like 2012 was a wonderful year for my hobby! If I'd taken 250 shots and all 250 had been perfect, I'd be kicking myself: "why not take 12,000 shots and see what else I might have gotten?"

Happy hunting.

Tech advice:
Shoot RAW (if you don't already). Every time. Even if you don't do photo editing on the computer, the visual fidelity of RAW files and the flexibility when you deal with them down the road is unlike anything else. It also has the bonus of eliminating concern about the histogram. RAW captures the full spectrum of lights and darks in every shot. JPEG is ready-for-web, which is convenient, but you need to work harder to find a balance as DETDOG was saying about, and in the best of cases the compression to JPEG discards a huge amount of useful visual information.

Good free photo editors:
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.getpaint.net/

Emotional advice:
I was also about 14 when I got my photography chops with the family Nikon and it became mine through use, as I hope will happen to you. It was pretty beat up and I didn't think it had much value to anyone else, and I let my guard down one day (in photography class, in high school, in a room full of people with cameras). Someone stole it. Nicked it when I left it on a table corner for 5 minutes.

Never let the camera out of your sight. NEVER.		2013-04-17 14:21:00

Author:
Unknown User

Glad to see you got the shutter bug!

I'm glad too! By the way, that may have been one of the most enthusiastic blocks of text I've ever read.

Sorry to hear about your first camera being stolen. Even though it sounds like you didn't like it that much. 		2013-04-19 05:18:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

I loved it to death! Never owned a camera like it since, and I've spent a lot of money on the hobby. I just thought that BECAUSE it was old and beat up it didn't have value to other people, and I was wrong. In fact it's because of that theft that I've never been quite as fond of future cameras. I don't let myself get attached. As with all loves, nothing quite compares to your first.

So with something like the 7D, definitely keep an eye on it. People smash windows for a lot less.		2013-04-19 05:28:00

Author:
Unknown User

I seem to only be much good at taking pictures of stationary things.

There are two things that you could try to take pictures of moving things. One that works simply is to put a fast shutter speed. This means that the whole photo will be less blurred. However, lowering the shutter speed means that less light will get into the frame. Therefore you need either good light, or you can raise the "ISO" on your camera. (I have no idea what ISO stands for.) This will result in a grainier photo.
You have to find the balance with these settings to get a good picture.

Another way is to use a slow-ish shutter speed "follow" the path of the moving object, and take the photo whilst moving the camera.
This results in photos like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Hybrid_Race_Car.jpg

The background is blurred, because you are moving the camera at a different speed to that of the background (which is stationary in this picture, obviously.) The car, however, is in focus, because the camera is moving with the car.
Here is probably a better explanation: Panning Photography technique (http://digital-photography-school.com/mastering-panning-to-photograph-moving-subjects)		2013-04-21 10:57:00

Author:
bluesteel789
Posts: 159

Hey!

First off, great pictures. They really are fantastic! You're starting to have an eye for composition.
I wish I was lucky enough to have a 7D when I was your age. I started off sharing a cheap 'Konica Minolta' (yeah, it's an actual DSLR make!) with my twin. Then, after taking pictures of just about every thing I saw for 3 years straight I finally saved up enough to get myself the Canon 1100D (even then, it's an entry-level DSLR) and it was then that I could finally use the precious skills that I built when using the old Konica Minolta.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/396091_282532691799893_1985156451_n.jpg
You always start off taking pictures of plants.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390841_282529685133527_386331260_n.jpg
... And sunsets.

So for you, all I have to say is take pictures! The more pictures you take, the more you learn, instinctively. It's not about how much technical knowledge or jargon-mumbo-jumbo you have. It's not about numbers, graphs or pixels. It's about just taking pictures.
I like your attitude Kaboosh99, keep it up!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/387666_259207217465774_57422260_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/534137_493550737364753_318340603_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/394899_282593131793849_1663563678_n.jpg
Then you veer off onto different styles.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/539739_499464420106718_1540065121_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/5386_493550934031400_1985589937_n.jpg
Put yourself in different situations. (btw that's my twin!)

From someone who is also wanting to go from beginner to professional, it's great to see your potential. I don't think I've reached my full potential yet, but I have been given some marvelous advice from everyone around me which has totally inspired me! Being a 'noob' (especially at your age) is totally exciting, it means you get to discover it all! And by god, there is a lot to learn!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/383912_402595013126993_877447970_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/734564_493551140698046_1450350102_n.jpg
Take your camera everywhere - it's fun!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/315511_500190600034100_1632313248_n.jpg
A little bit of Photoshop know-how helps.

I plan to enter into the frightening realm of Film/TV. I guess it stems from my deep-seeded love for Films and Photography. It's looking promising, but it's risky (having a normal desk-job with steady pay seems more logical) but it will work out and it will be worth it. Meet as many other enthusiasts as possible. Find your style. Build a portfolio. Make a movie. Do something out of the ordinary. Show off your brilliant work. Take your camera everywhere. Take pictures. Take pictures. Take pictures.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390690_282593055127190_551565487_n.jpg

Oh, and don't forget to post them here 		2013-04-28 21:00:00

Author:
indiebud
Posts: 80

Hey!
Hullo.


First off, great pictures. They really are fantastic! You're starting to have an eye for composition.
Ooh, thank you!


I wish I was lucky enough to have a 7D when I was your age. I started off sharing a cheap 'Konica Minolta' (yeah, it's an actual DSLR make!) with my twin. Then, after taking pictures of just about every thing I saw for 3 years straight I finally saved up enough to get myself the Canon 1100D (even then, it's an entry-level DSLR) and it was then that I could finally use the precious skills that I built when using the old Konica Minolta.
It's still kinda weird seeing the 7D floating about the house. I've never had such an expensive... anything, really. Never heard of Konica.


I like your attitude Kaboosh99, keep it up!
Daw, you're being too nice. :blush:


I plan to enter into the frightening realm of Film/TV. I guess it stems from my deep-seeded love for Films and Photography. It's looking promising, but it's risky (having a normal desk-job with steady pay seems more logical) but it will work out and it will be worth it.
Sounds interesting! Good luck with getting what could be the bestest job ever.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0323_zps914251f6.jpg

Brisbane skyline in the early evening.

http://i1162.photobucket.com/albums/q521/Kaboosh99/IMG_0056_zpsf738f37a.jpg

A somewhat pretty pattern I found on the side of a skyscraper.		2013-04-29 07:57:00

Author:
Kaboosh99
Posts: 359

nice pics i do stopmotion animation in my free time with those halo megabloks figures (im an all console guy btw XD)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLOGBDTXZ9g


What do you think? 		2013-05-02 00:53:00

Author:
Seant1228
Posts: 348

So, how's progress with the camera? Whatcha been taking pictures of?2013-05-16 09:26:00

Author:
Unknown User


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