the new Sony a33 (translucent mirror) will be decent for action shots

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/dsi-body/slt-a33

Pentax k-x probably best DSLR for 400 quid

smaller interchangable cameras then maybe GF1 or Oly E-P1 or Sony NEX-3

And they’re better than any of us lot.

IMO this is irrelevant. I only have me to take the pictures, not some famous dead bloke. Using a crapper camera won’t help.

Poddy; I don’t have a Photopic account atm. If I email it to you, maybe you could sort it out? Or use the one I emailed you?

That’s incredibly flattering for you to say that btw.

the new Sony a33 (translucent mirror) will be decent for action shots

if you read the review on DPReview, you’ll see the viewfinder cannot keep up with high shooting rates and movement, quite apart from wasting 30% of the incident light on the mirror…

I’ve lost it mate. 🙁

I love that shot. I’d like to print it out A4 and get it up on the wall somewhere. It plays with my brain. So much movement I sit waiting for the rider to get on with it!

So how d’you go about taking a manual shot? Do you start with the camera’s own settings and adjust from there?

As Graham S says, manual is often the only option. I’m just back from shooting a foster kids’ do – each pic had a kid shaking hands with Chris Cook (Olympic swimming chappie) and getting a certificate.

I wanted every single exposure (all 72 of them) to be exactly the same, so I don’t need to spend hours on the computer later. It also gives a nice uniformity to a set of images and there is less to go wrong.

So I set up my remote flash, camera in manual mode, apperture set to f2.8 and shutter speed to 1/200th. White balance set to flash too (usually I just leave it on auto).

Now it doesn’t matter if someone switches lights on or off, or if the sun goes down or anything else really, as I am controlling the amount of light hitting the subject with the flash and camera settings.

The camera’s almost always on apperture priority for weddings though, unless I’m messing about with flash, in which case it’s likely to be on shutter prioity.

Manual control gives far more scope to be creative

I wonder if you’re confusing creativity with gimmickism ? Yes you can play about with DOF if you wish (yawn), add streaks or jimmy the exposure, but I prefer to be as true as I can to the original scene/subject(s), not try to add spurious “value”…

I’ll email you it now Peter.

Sent, Peter; it’s sent.

molgrips: you can do. There is usually a little exposure meter in the viewfinder. Or you can use a light meter, or work it out from the Sunny 16 rule, or these days just shoot then check the histogram.

Yes you can play about with DOF if you wish (yawn), add streaks or jimmy the exposure, but I prefer to be as true as I can to the original scene/subject(s), not try to add spurious “value”…

It’s not about recreating a scene falsely. If I use f2.8 to get a shallow depth of field, it accurately represents what the eye sees – look at the top of your monitor. Now look over the top of it, out of the corner of your eye – everything above the monitor is out of focus, no?

Very useful for separating your subject from a distracting background too!

Cheers mate. Computer is off now, I’ll have a look tomorrow. 🙂

Do it on yer iPhone, innit?

I prefer to be as true as I can to the original scene/subject(s), not try to add spurious “value”…

Using an Auto mode means you will be less true to the original than if you “jimmy the exposure”.

User-removed: save your breath, Simon has said before that he doesn’t believe in shallow depth of field and ideally would like all his pictures to have infinite depth just like his eyesight 🙄

(ironically of course he would better achieve this goal with a small sensor compact)

Graham; it’s all about the bokeh, remember?! 😀

Where has Ti29er disappeared to?

I’m intrigued elfinsafety, can you send that picture to me please? 🙂

everything above the monitor is out of focus, no?

everywhere I look is always in focus unless I forget my glasses

Using an Auto mode means you will be less true to the original than if you “jimmy the exposure”.

then I spin the little dial or bracket 🙂

Simon has said before that he doesn’t believe in shallow depth of field and ideally would like all his pictures to a infinite depth

well, if the subject is sufficiently compelling, you won’t notice anything else anyway – just as if you were in the original scene 🙂

It’s completely impossible to accurately capture what you see on film anyway. A best approximation would be a huge print that you wrapped all around the front of a person in a hemisphere. And then have it made out of all the things that the real world was made out of, instead of just paper, so the light looks right.

Not gonna happen.

Not gonna happen.

what, so give up?

Graham; it’s all about the bokeh, remember?!

what bokeh for eyes ?

everywhere I look is always in focus unless I forget my glasses

OK, but my point was that the human eye has a fairly shallow DOF (at a total guess, it’s probably quite close to f4?!) – have you tried the monitor thing?

SFB = white noise.

Again.

OK, but my point was that the human eye has a fairly shallow DOF

but it refocusses in real time and builds up an in-focus gestalt. The mental image is nothing like the real time info supplied by the retina – you eyes jump around constantly – if they didn’t you’d stop being able to see as the photosensitive dyes were exhausted, and the focussed part of the visual field is only half a degree across – you unconsciously sweep this over the subject, and your brain only retains the sharp bits.

I’m intrigued elfinsafety, can you send that picture to me please?

No Poddy’ll bung it up tomorrow; anticipation makes things exciting.

Poddy loves it, but tbh I wasn’t personally that thrilled about it. You might see it tomorrow and think it’s shit.

Barnes is simply an obtuse bastard, but I love him all the same. I do like a good photography argument thread now and then. 😀

then I spin the little dial or bracket

How does that differ from “jimmying the exposure” exactly (whatever that even means)?

what, so give up?

No, accept that you are creating a representation of what you see, and work with that. It’s never going to look exactly right. If you just want a visual record of what you see, that’s just holiday snaps isn’t it? So you might as well get a compact?

the human eye has a fairly shallow DOF (at a total guess, it’s probably quite close to f4?!)

The aperture varies with the available light just like a camera. I dunno how you’d calculate it tho. The sensitivity changes too I think, but it takes a while. Which is why your night vision continues to improve over 20 or 30 mins despite your pupils dilating more or less straight away.

How does that differ from “jimmying the exposure” exactly (whatever that even means)?

it’s quicker 🙂

Which is why your night vision continues to improve over 20 or 30 mins

I think it’s much quicker than this…

everywhere I look is always in focus unless I forget my glasses

I suspect you lack peripheral vision then.

if you read the review on DPReview, you’ll see the viewfinder cannot keep up with high shooting rates and movement, quite apart from wasting 30% of the incident light on the mirror…

and heres their summary of the a55 (which doesnt differ much, 10fps instead of 7 and 16MP instead of 14) – hardly sounds bad to me

The Sony SLT-A55 is an excellent all-rounder with a comprehensive feature set. The translucent mirror technology gives it an innovative touch and the best live view AF on the market. Continuous shooting performance is the best in its class – just don’t plan on shooting the Olympics with it.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyslta55/page18.asp

The eye takes approximately 20–30 minutes to fully adapt from bright sunlight to complete darkness and become ten thousand to one million times more sensitive than at full daylight

Hah! Bang on!

I read somewhere that the human eye could respond to two incident photons. That’s sensitive.

Barnes is simply an obtuse bastard

it’s not as simple as that. Whenever someone starts spouting received “wisdom” at me, I immediately assume they are more or less wrong. Look at all the stupid stuff people used to believe in – now we know slightly better, but it would be overarching hubris to assume we’d reached the end of knowledge and I figure about half of what we think we know is still crap. Work it out for yourself instead.

Conqueror – that’s the thing with DP review. They pick a few negatives about some camera, however slight, and people on the forums seem to think the camera’s awful despite the conclusion of the review saying it’s overall really good.

Whenever someone starts spouting received “wisdom” at me, I immediately assume they are more or less wrong.

Why? Sometimes it’s right.

The aperture varies with the available light just like a camera

Not sure about this – I think my eye’s depth of field is the same on a sunny day as it is in a darkish room. Off to ask optometrist friend >>>>

Agree with Barnes about the speed of eye adjustment to the dark – if I take my dog for a midnighgt walk, I stand in the dark with my eyes closed for about a minute (haven’t been mugged yet 🙂 ). When I open my eyes, my night vision is about as good as it’ll ever be.

I suspect you lack peripheral vision then.

I said everywhere I look. Unless I’m skenning down some lass’s top to get a crafty perve, I look directly at things. Peripheral vision is for spotting predators.

Why? Sometimes it’s right.

but nobody knows which 50%…

skenning down some lass’s top to get a crafty perve

LOL! I told you he’s a bastard, din’t I? 😆

‘Skenning’ 😆

‘Skenning’

the age old “not-looking” sideways look 🙂 Walking with a girlfriend she told me lots of women in the street were doing the same thing to me, never catching my eye but she could see them doing it 🙂

No that’s just a horrified double-take, Simon. Different.

No that’s just a horrified double-take, Simon. Different.

well, she is in love with me so perhaps she’s not objective ?

I said everywhere I look.

So if you want pictures where everything in the field is in focus then presumably you look at everything.

Personally if I want to take a photo that accurately reflects reality then I want it to be a picture of what I see, not what I could see if I swivelled my eyes around like a loon.

I am sitting here typing this on my phone. The bright phone screen is perfectly sharp. I am vaguely aware of the shape and colours of the items in the room behind it, but they are not sharp or detailed and they are artificially dark.

If I wanted to take a “realistic” picture of what I see in this moment then I wouldn’t want the rest of the room in focus because that is not what I am perceiving.

There you go. I’ve re-examined the “received wisdom” from first principles and funnily enough it turns out that it is right and you are wrong. 😀

When I take pictures, I usually want to reproduce the feeling I’m getting from what I see.