Bought a camera for my latest LOS trip

[bobby1961]

I love seeing some of the pictures you guys put on this website and wanted to try it for myself. I work in a Sony shop so it had to be one of there cameras.

Tried using an alpha but it was to big and combersome for me but I liked the images one of my work mates took with his in Florida.

So I decided to go half way and bought a NEX5 the day before my trip.

For my lunch break that day I went round to georges square in Glasgow to see what I could do with it and experimented with different depth of field shots to see what differance it made even I was stunned by the difference a simple thing like this makes to a photo.

So off I went on the Sunday to Glasgow airport heading to my favourite country.

Found out after 2 weeks of various attempts that the photos got better and better all the time as i started to understand how to take a photo. Now none of these shots have been touched up in any way cos I wouldnt know where to start with the software but if anyone can give me some costructive criticism it would be welcome.

Edited October 14, 2010 by bobby1961

[bobby1961]

And some more

Edited October 14, 2010 by bobby1961

[bobby1961]

And the fact it can do full HD video made it amazing

 

Just found out that my files didnt get resized as I copied them from the wrong folder sorry

[cuteincords1]

Nothing wrong with your piccys my friend , excellent , but you need to resize them for this forum way to big

 

search ''photo resizing'' on You Tube and watch some tutorial video's on there

[Mr David]

you can always go back and edit the original post.

 

Looks like a good camera you have there and the HD video is a nice bonus. If you want some constructive criticism - Some of the photos don't look as if you were holding the camera straight. Look at the first ones with the flowers and then the angles of the building in the background, they look like they are tilting over. The same goes for one of the nice shots of the sea in the second bunch, the horizon is tilted and not level. All these things are very easily fixed using something like photo shop and always happens when not using a level tripod.

 

There is a tutorial on resizing them http://www.pattaya-addicts.com/forum/topic/52408-resizing-images-tutorial/

 

I have a very quick broadband connection and it takes some time with files this size.

 

Thanks for sharing the pictures, just need to hurry up my countdown timer now.

[zanny]

Well there goes my download quota for the month!

 

Will be good to see better quality muff from your posts in the future.

 

BTW I use Picasa 3 to edit and manage my photos, with easy and free sync to my google account. It is also easy to use the export feature to resize a bunch of photos very quickly at 1024.

[Chronos]

Pictures are not bad for someone using this camera for the 1st time..well done.

 

However, there are some things you can do to improve your photography. There is noticeable 'digital noise' in most of your shots, this is a result of having your 'iso' set too high, you only need to start increasing your iso in low light situation's (at the same time decreasing your aperture - lower f stop). In normal daylight set your iso to its lowest, that way you will get very little noise. Do not rely on 'auto' iso.

 

Do not rely on full 'auto' as this can deceive the camera with some of it's settings - for instance 'white balance' - that is the 'temperature' of the shot ie. whether it is 'cold' looking ( more bluish) or 'warm' looking (more 'orangy/yellow')....most cameras will have 'white balance' settings...pick one that is suitable for the environment such as cloudy - daylight/sunny - flash - fluorescent - tungsten etc. If you get the 'white balance' correct you will have near perfect 'colour' for the environment of the shot.

 

Keep you camera on 'auto focus' until such times you are proficient with manual focusing. If your camera has different methods of how it 'measures' what it is focusing on ie. spot - average or centre weighted - study these and practice until you can apply them to given situations, for instance - shallow DOF (depth of field) this is where you focus on one part and blur the background so that what you are focusing on 'pops' out (it's called Bokah) in that case you would use 'spot' focusing as in this example:

 

 

Other than full 'auto' your camera should have other settings, whatever they are, if you have a setting named 'Av'..or similar, use this..why?...Av stands for 'aperture priority' this means that once you have set the the exposure value ie. 'f' stop (how wide or narrow your lens opening is) the camera then works out the 'speed' of the shutter, you will of course already have set your white balance and iso parameters. conversely, you could use 'Tv' (or similar) this mode works the other way round, instead of concentrating on the 'aperture priority' it sets the 'Time priority' first ie. the shutter speed and you then adjust the 'f stop' to get the correct exposure. In most situations 'Av' works better because it measures the 'light' going to the sensor better and quicker.

 

Good photography is all about 'capturing light' and not capturing the subject. To make your shots 'stand out' concentrate on 'using' the light while being mindful of your composition, depth of field ( remember with depth of field - the smaller your aperture the deeper your DOF and vica-versa), focus and iso. If you take shots of people close up...focus only on eyes, to eliminate 'camera shake' even if you have 'image stabilization' on camera as just pressing the shutter will cause an out of focus result, keep your feet apart, elbows in to your sides and hold breath when pressing shutter - trust me all these things will help you get that perfect shot! A word on 'composition'...some of your shots are a bit too busy..think about the 'Rule of Thirds'...simply..on your screen imagine 9 equally spaced squares...use these squares to compose your shot..being mindful that we have a 'subject'..a 'foreground'...and a 'background'...look for things that is going to distract the eye from your main objective/subject and eliminate them from the shot.With practice it will become second nature...so practice!

 

Also bear in mind that your camera has a APS-C sensor, that basically means that 'what you see you will not necessarily get'..it is a 'cropped' sensor so by its very nature you will lose some of what you thought you had got, ..let me explain...on the old type of 35mm film cameras what you saw through the viewfinder is what you would get when printed, the same goes for the modern professional 'Full Frame' DSLR..you get exactly that..a 'Full Frame'...the 'cropped' sensor chops some off the shot, but it can have other benefits. The 'crop' factor increases the focal length of your lenses by about x 1.6...so your 18mm -55mm lens in effect becomes a 28.8mm (at its shortest focal length) and 88mm (at its longest length)- your 16mm becomes 25.6mm...so while you lose a bit of the shot because of the crop factor you gain in the focal length of the lens.

 

The more familiar you become with the settings of your camera and the more you practice the better your results will be. You will soon discover what works best for you by doing this and you will make any adjustments on the fly...happy snapping...and no doubt you will be posting some perfect 'pussy shots'...lets face it...thats why you bought the camera in the first place..you cant kid us!...Good luck and thanks for posting your pics!

[bobby1961]

Pictures are not bad for someone using this camera for the 1st time..well done.

 

However, there are some things you can do to improve your photography. There is noticeable 'digital noise' in most of your shots, this is a result of having your 'iso' set too high, you only need to start increasing your iso in low light situation's (at the same time decreasing your aperture - lower f stop). In normal daylight set your iso to its lowest, that way you will get very little noise. Do not rely on 'auto' iso.

 

Do not rely on full 'auto' as this can deceive the camera with some of it's settings - for instance 'white balance' - that is the 'temperature' of the shot ie. whether it is 'cold' looking ( more bluish) or 'warm' looking (more 'orangy/yellow')....most cameras will have 'white balance' settings...pick one that is suitable for the environment such as cloudy - daylight/sunny - flash - fluorescent - tungsten etc. If you get the 'white balance' correct you will have near perfect 'colour' for the environment of the shot.

 

Keep you camera on 'auto focus' until such times you are proficient with manual focusing. If your camera has different methods of how it 'measures' what it is focusing on ie. spot - average or centre weighted - study these and practice until you can apply them to given situations, for instance - shallow DOF (depth of field) this is where you focus on one part and blur the background so that what you are focusing on 'pops' out (it's called Bokah) in that case you would use 'spot' focusing as in this example:

 

 

Other than full 'auto' your camera should have other settings, whatever they are, if you have a setting named 'Av'..or similar, use this..why?...Av stands for 'aperture priority' this means that once you have set the the exposure value ie. 'f' stop (how wide or narrow your lens opening is) the camera then works out the 'speed' of the shutter, you will of course already have set your white balance and iso parameters. conversely, you could use 'Tv' (or similar) this mode works the other way round, instead of concentrating on the 'aperture priority' it sets the 'Time priority' first ie. the shutter speed and you then adjust the 'f stop' to get the correct exposure. In most situations 'Av' works better because it measures the 'light' going to the sensor better and quicker.

 

Good photography is all about 'capturing light' and not capturing the subject. To make your shots 'stand out' concentrate on 'using' the light while being mindful of your composition, depth of field ( remember with depth of field - the smaller your aperture the deeper your DOF and vica-versa), focus and iso. If you take shots of people close up...focus only on eyes, to eliminate 'camera shake' even if you have 'image stabilization' on camera as just pressing the shutter will cause an out of focus result, keep your feet apart, elbows in to your sides and hold breath when pressing shutter - trust me all these things will help you get that perfect shot! A word on 'composition'...some of your shots are a bit too busy..think about the 'Rule of Thirds'...simply..on your screen imagine 9 equally spaced squares...use these squares to compose your shot..being mindful that we have a 'subject'..a 'foreground'...and a 'background'...look for things that is going to distract the eye from your main objective/subject and eliminate them from the shot.With practice it will become second nature...so practice!

 

Also bear in mind that your camera has a APS-C sensor, that basically means that 'what you see you will not necessarily get'..it is a 'cropped' sensor so by its very nature you will lose some of what you thought you had got, ..let me explain...on the old type of 35mm film cameras what you saw through the viewfinder is what you would get when printed, the same goes for the modern professional 'Full Frame' DSLR..you get exactly that..a 'Full Frame'...the 'cropped' sensor chops some off the shot, but it can have other benefits. The 'crop' factor increases the focal length of your lenses by about x 1.6...so your 18mm -55mm lens in effect becomes a 28.8mm (at its shortest focal length) and 88mm (at its longest length)- your 16mm becomes 25.6mm...so while you lose a bit of the shot because of the crop factor you gain in the focal length of the lens.

 

The more familiar you become with the settings of your camera and the more you practice the better your results will be. You will soon discover what works best for you by doing this and you will make any adjustments on the fly...happy snapping...and no doubt you will be posting some perfect 'pussy shots'...lets face it...thats why you bought the camera in the first place..you cant kid us!...Good luck and thanks for posting your pics!

Begining to understand some of these things I have put on basic information and I can see now that changing the aperture changes things like shutter speed and iso setting some of my photos have really low iso (200) and very fast shutter speed and also low depth of field so changing the aperture lets me control some of the other part of the photo.

2 days ago I didnt have a clue about things like this thanks for your help.

And out of the hundreds of photos I shot there is no pussy shots and only 3 tits lol

[bobby1961]

I can also see why my photo of the young girl looking at me is my favourite it has a setting of 1/80 F5 ISO 500

Now when I can improve on the basics it will be time to try 3d and also changing the aperture settings for video to get depth of field on that as well.

This is a steep learning curve but when you can see improvements quickly it is exiting, now roll on February till I am back in LOS and will see the sun again.

I have taken most of the photos down till I get my resized ones ready again but I am keeping my favourite and the one with the 2 birds cos they are hot in my eyes lol.

Edited October 14, 2010 by bobby1961

[Chronos]

I can also see why my photo of the young girl looking at me is my favourite it has a setting of 1/80 F5 ISO 500

Now when I can improve on the basics it will be time to try 3d and also changing the aperture settings for video to get depth of field on that as well.

This is a steep learning curve but when you can see improvements quickly it is exiting, now roll on February till I am back in LOS and will see the sun again.

I have taken most of the photos down till I get my resized ones ready again but I am keeping my favourite and the one with the 2 birds cos they are hot in my eyes lol.

 

 

Glad to help - On your 'favourite' picture of the young girl, the focus is spot on albeit just a tad of camera shake which could have been avoided by increasing the shutter speed, which implies that the iso would need increasing or the 'f stop' decreased (wider than f5). I do know that there is built image stabilization on the lens and I am assuming that you had this switched on! Is f5 the widest aperture on the camera - if so then the only way to increase shutter speed is by increasing the iso which goes up to 12800 on your camera - you could take pictures of Obama's arse in a coal bunker at that setting! Just remember High iso = High 'Noise'.

 

Also, remember the tip about breathing and the way you hold the camera - control that and you will definitely begin to see sharper shots, it will become natural to you eventually. You will eventually use the HDR (Higher Dynamic Range) function on the camera, this is a fun way to get some stunning colour shots, it works especially well with sea and landscapes - experiment with it! Have fun!

[bobby1961]

Glad to help - On your 'favourite' picture of the young girl, the focus is spot on albeit just a tad of camera shake which could have been avoided by increasing the shutter speed, which implies that the iso would need increasing or the 'f stop' decreased (wider than f5). I do know that there is built image stabilization on the lens and I am assuming that you had this switched on! Is f5 the widest aperture on the camera - if so then the only way to increase shutter speed is by increasing the iso which goes up to 12800 on your camera - you could take pictures of Obama's arse in a coal bunker at that setting! Just remember High iso = High 'Noise'.

 

Also, remember the tip about breathing and the way you hold the camera - control that and you will definitely begin to see sharper shots, it will become natural to you eventually. You will eventually use the HDR (Higher Dynamic Range) function on the camera, this is a fun way to get some stunning colour shots, it works especially well with sea and landscapes - experiment with it! Have fun!

The reason for camera shake was I had just played a round of golf and drunk quite a few heinekens afterwards but your tips have been great and it is fantastic that someone wants to help a newbie in this kind of thing.

Normally the forum is full of how can I get a cheap flight or a cheap taxi from the airport to Pattaya your help is really appreaciated.

Next year I will be posting photos you will be proud off

 

Thanks again

Bobby

[Chronos]

I can also see why my photo of the young girl looking at me is my favourite it has a setting of 1/80 F5 ISO 500

Now when I can improve on the basics it will be time to try 3d and also changing the aperture settings for video to get depth of field on that as well.

This is a steep learning curve but when you can see improvements quickly it is exiting, now roll on February till I am back in LOS and will see the sun again.

I have taken most of the photos down till I get my resized ones ready again but I am keeping my favourite and the one with the 2 birds cos they are hot in my eyes lol.

 

 

I hope you don't mind but I've taken the liberty of giving one of your 'Hot' girl's a digital makeover!

 

 

...at least now I think one would be more inclined to stick yer cock in her gob!

[Chronos]

Bobby1961..........You may be interested to know that Sony have upgraded the firmware for the NEX range of cameras...Follow this link and pick your country!

 

http://support.sony-europe.com/hub/hub.html

 

Just follow the instructions!!

[bobby1961]

Downloaded it on Thursday from Japan now I am practising with aperture priority videos.

Have had a try at shooting using faster shutter speed with lower iso and overexposure settings and getting interesting results.

There is a lot more to these types of cameras than I thought.

It is really trial and error to see what photos you can get and more importantly what you think it looks like.

But it is something I never would have believed I would have liked as much as i do, it is like playing video games when I was younger I wonder what happens when I do this oops then christ what did I do cos wow that worked.

[bobby1961]

And my boss is really glad I bought it cos before when someone asked about cameras before I always got a work mate to deal with them cos i knew nothing about photography. I was only interested in large tvs projectors and av systems. Since I came back from LOS on Monday I have sold 3 alphas and 2 nex cameras simply because I could explain in simple terms why it is much better than a compact digital and show with confidence the difference.

[Chronos]

And my boss is really glad I bought it cos before when someone asked about cameras before I always got a work mate to deal with them cos i knew nothing about photography. I was only interested in large tvs projectors and av systems. Since I came back from LOS on Monday I have sold 3 alphas and 2 nex cameras simply because I could explain in simple terms why it is much better than a compact digital and show with confidence the difference.

 

Good for you mate - the more you use the camera the more confident you will become and therefore get better at taking that shot! I will be making a post in the advanced section that gives a simple outline of setting up your camera and what to do with the images in Photoshop (if you use it).

[jumpman233345]

I have just bought a Panasonic Lumix TZ10 after LOTS of reading for my first upcoming trip. Cant wait to revive it and USE IT!

I am an amiture when it comes to photography but i hope to capture some nice pics for you all to see and hopefully add to a TR at some time

 

upload png

Edited September 20, 2011 by jumpman233345

[bobby1961]

Just make sure as you enter a gogo bar you show the bouncers the battery is out as is the memory card. Me and some mates were walking towards whats up last month and the bouncers saw the camera round my neck. I walked up took the battery out and the card one of the bouncers said not first time pattaya. Just smiled and said no. About 20 mins later a girl came up and said you have camera you want take my photo. I said I cant no battery or card, Good man she said.

[jumpman233345]

great tip thanks for sharing , I will do that out of respect for the rules and to show im not a typical knob head abroad lol

[QuotaMan]

I also have the NEX-5 purchased not too long ago.

 

I was eyeing the Canon Rebel T2i since the local Costco had several DSLR's for sale. But looking at cameras online, I decided on the NEX-5 mostly because of its smaller size.

 

I am pretty clueless as to taking pictures and general terminology like apertures, etc., but am starting to do more research online. I also ordered a book that expands a lot more on the different features of the NEX-5 so hopefully I'll get up to speed soon.

[bobby1961]

I also have the NEX-5 purchased not too long ago.

 

I was eyeing the Canon Rebel T2i since the local Costco had several DSLR's for sale. But looking at cameras online, I decided on the NEX-5 mostly because of its smaller size.

 

I am pretty clueless as to taking pictures and general terminology like apertures, etc., but am starting to do more research online. I also ordered a book that expands a lot more on the different features of the NEX-5 so hopefully I'll get up to speed soon.

It is a great wee camera. Only problem I have with it is now I have had a year with it the limitations in manual mode really piss me off. But the new firmware updates to let you shoot in one colour only is fantastic, and it works with video as well. Without spending a few thousand pounds you cant beat this camera for video.

[bobby1961]

Waiting on my delivery of the new A77 for my next trip in March.

[little_me]

I've got the Sony A330 (was a price I couldn't refuse at the time) and am also waiting for the A77. I like the size of the Nex cameras, but with my budget and the number of lenses I already have (mostly old Minolta lenses) I'm sorta stuck with the Alphas.

 

From what I've read it seems that they have a bit more option than the average point and shoot. Having a DSLR, I rarely used manual mode (usually only with an external flash, or two or three), generally using programmed auto or aperture priority mode if I want to control the depth of field. I leave the ISO on auto unless it's dark, the auto ISO seems to have a limit of about 800 (I've never seen it go past that) so if I want more sensitivity I have to force it. But above 800 the image starts to get pretty noisy, and I really gotta be trying to get a picture in the dark or of something that needs a fast shutter.

 

If I was in a studio, or converting my hotel to one like some of these guys apparently do, I'm sure manual is the way to go. But trying to walk around and snap shots of stuff like I normally do (sometimes from the baht bus), I'm not fast enough, or lack to confidence that the exposures will stay relatively constant, so I let the camera select at least the shutter speed. And it's noisy enough that I've learned from experience when it sounds too long.

 

I always save in RAW, I'm guessing the Nex will do that too. It's pretty easy to modify white balance with raw, and add some light. Picasa will handle them, export them to JPG, and Microsoft has a new codec to read them, so most of the old issues with raw vs. jpg are gone.

[bobby1961]

I ended up getting the A65 (got fed up waiting for an A77). The money saved bought a couple of prime lenses. I have started shooting using full manual control and manual focus. 14 months ago I was a complete newbie with cameras but now I never leave the house without one.

 

The biggest discovery I made was the more photo's you take the more you understand what works for you.

 

If some one told me when I made my first post, that 14 months later I would have spent a day off going round Glasgow just taking photos I would have laughed at them. Oh and I didn't even know what a prime lens was then.

 

Thanks to all the help I received on here.

[bobby1961]

I have also learned how to resize.