Photography tips

[Skyvalhunter]

Great tips and nice pictures Bone. Do you have any suggestions on cameras? Do you prefer a digital SLR as oppose to just a digital camera?. I know one thing is you can never shoot enough pictures. I hike alot during the off season and have some pictures of the same place I have visited but shot again as the light might have been a little different. Tough thing seems to be that the picture never seems to be as good as it was at the moment you took it. Maybe it has to do with how the eye sees things.

[boneaddict]

I would prefer the SLR, but affordability is another thing.  I think the Nikkon D200 camera would be one of the best you can get.  The D80 would be acceptable.  The problem with these SLR cameras is the price.  I love my Cannon A2E, but its film, not digital.  A comparable lens with the low F stop of 2.8 at 400mm would cost about 10 grand.  You get into the same sort of thing with the digital SLRs.  I like the Panasonic Lumix series as they do quite a variety of things for the price.  Plus you are shooting through Lieca glass.  The new FZ18 also has a pretty good macro mode for taking macro shots.  I haven't experimented much with it, but it seems like it would work good.  I lke to dink and play, and the SLR is good for that.  I'd LOVE to have one with a good telephoto lens, one variable zoom for family shots, and one for macro stuff like pictures of fly tying, bugs, etc.  The other nice thing is the size.  You'll find packing a huge camera around and the tripod, becomes an issue, especially backpacking into tough country.

[jackelope]

i have 3 digital cameras in my household. my old nikon coolpix, it's replacement the panasonic lumix fz 18, and my wife has a digital rebel slr. the slr takes the best pics hands down. it's also the fastest as far as delays. the nikon is so outdated we won't even talk about that. i think it comes down to what kind of pics you want to take and how much money you want to burn up.
if i wanted to buy a few lenses and had the money, i'd go dslr. the cameras themselves are getting cheaper and cheaper. you can buy a 100-300mm f4-5.6 lense for a few hundred bucks. it won't be the quality lense of, say, a canon L lense, but it works pretty damn good for the average joe. those little mule deer pic's i posted in the pisscutter thread were taken by that canon with a 100-300 stretched out to 300mm at f5.6. they work for me.
hopefully i will get similar results out of the lumix...we shall see. the macro mode does work well on that camera...it's pretty much all i've used it for so far.

[popeshawnpaul]

Bone, I would never use autofocus in the areas your shooting.  The brush is just too noisy and the autofocus will pick up on it a lot.  Also, brush tends to be "noisy" for a background.  There are some tricks you can use to avoid a noisy background.  I change my angle, use f2.8 or wider, and get tight crops.  Additionally, you shoot in tough conditions.  Getting good deer photos in an area where deer are hunted is tough, so I have a lot of respect for you and the photos you are getting. 

Sometimes, with manual focus you can use a distracting grass/brush for you...

[boneaddict]

Thanks Pope, I have alot of trouble with autofocus picking up on brush and branches etc.  You only have so many seconds if that for the shot, and when you camera focuses on that brush, its a pain.  I can do all right with my Cannon, but have troubles manual focusing with the digitals I have.  MORE practice.  I agree with you on letting your background work for you.  One of my favorite pics is like that.  I scanned it and its on here somewhere, but the grass and sage are all blurred in the background.

[popeshawnpaul]

Yeah, I'm leaving right now on my annual rut photo safari.  (I took the above photo at the site)  I'm going to be dealing with the same issues you deal with because of the place I shoot.  It has lots of distracting horse grass.  To make matters worse, I don't have a 2.8 lense for this shoot.  I bet it will be raining or snowing also.  Should be interesting what I can get...

[boneaddict]

here it is

[boneaddict]

Have fun.  Yep the weather is a bear.  Nic bright blue conditions and wonderful light....no animals or dreary wet, dark foggy conditions, game everywhere.  Tough choice.  I think I am headed out to get some whities in the rain.  They had completely died down when the weather was so nice when I was out with Lil.  That and of course the increased pressure with the hunt going on.  Good Luck.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of your AWESOME pics.  Hopefully you run into another HAWG like that last one.

[boneaddict]

Onlyif he was a massive 30 incher.....another example of blurring out the background a bit...

[jackelope]

depth of field?
i think thats what it's referred to as...
cool shots. are those scanned from film?

[jackelope]

autofocus gone bad...the foreground looks sweet...unfortunately i wanted it the other way around and just got too distracted by horns....

[boneaddict]

Yep, those are from the 35mm.  You have no idea how often autofocus goes bad.  Neat thing about digital is that you can see it right away.  Its a real bitch when you get your film back and its that way.

[PacificNWhunter]

Wow great pictures...Now I am going to have to get a camera and give it a try!

[Antlershed]

Great tips and nice pictures Bone. Do you have any suggestions on cameras? Do you prefer a digital SLR as oppose to just a digital camera?. I know one thing is you can never shoot enough pictures. I hike alot during the off season and have some pictures of the same place I have visited but shot again as the light might have been a little different. Tough thing seems to be that the picture never seems to be as good as it was at the moment you took it. Maybe it has to do with how the eye sees things.

Like Bone mentioned, the Nikon DSLR's are very nice cameras. My dad has the D200 and I have the D80. I have an 18-200 lense for close-in stuff, and for now I borrow my dad's 80-400 when I want to reach out a little farther.

[LEN]

Bone if I may, What film are you shooting if not 400 step up to it, it will give you a bit in the darker times. Don't zoom in so far with a 35mm you have more resolution than a 12 MP DSLR. Also  have the pics burned to cd the you can play with the output in a photo editor. Try the manual focus but first set the diopter on the view finder to your eye, you will be surprised how well the old eyes work even in a fast moving enviorment. Also maybe don't center the object of your desire, use the old 1/3 rule, makes for a much more interesting photo. Use the  shortest focal length and the narrowest aperture you can for the most depth of field.

Canon A-1 film
Canon XTI ,17-70 Sigma, 70-300 IS, Quantary 2x telle
then mutiply by 1.6 for a digital 27-112, 112-480  2x 224-960 
Canon S5IS (35-485) some where in that range.

LEN