Few Odd Questions...

hi, I recently bought a Nikon D50 Digital SLR, and i am used to using just my cellphone cam, and a cheap 100 dollar digital cam.

I like to line up artsy pics by moving all around and just angle it wierd till i see a nice pic. With the Nikon, its heavy and foreign to look through, and i have to have head glued to it, side to side in and out etc, which is a little odd. Would a cheaper cam with a lcd screen on back be more for someone like me? Or does it get easy, like with cell cam once used to it? Has anyone else here gone through this kind of transition and ended up with better pics once used to the change?

Does the nikon cut off or add any edges to the pictures or is what you see what you get?

when i look through the cheap digital, i get what i see, without zoom i think, is there a zero zoom like setting on the Nikon? Or is it always zoomed in or out.

Mary

The picture you'll get should be just a little bigger than what you see in the viewfinder, but very close. With practice, you'll find that you can do a lot more with a camera like that then something that's totally automatic (although you can use the D50 this way too). The prints will look a lot better too.

Practice "seeing" - most of the time I look at something and figure out how I want to photograph it before I pick up the camera. Work on this too, and you'll improve a lot!

hey thanks! anywhere i can learn about this 'seeing' technique? infact, i guess i just have to practice to get the hang of it, thanks so much for your help i really needed it! :D
Mary

Welcome, pfin. Your post is really interesting, as it shows how a new generation of photographers is learning the craft in a way quite the opposite of the "old days"...

Not too long ago, most everyone would have experienced a viewfinder camera first (ie eye to camera), then made the transition to something with an LCD screen that could held away from the body as you compose the shot.

Steve gives some good advice, and it might help if you don't think of the two systems as one being better than the other. They are just different ways of shooting (and seeing), and each has its merits.

True, the viewfinder method is a more traditional way of creating a photo, obviously more straight forward in a way that forces you to look directly at a scene and compose. This way is probably the best way to learn how to shoot.

But the "point & shoot away from your face" system has merit, and can often give you a more spontaneous pic, not mention put your camera in a position that your face might not be able to reach...

Best thing is this: you can use "viewfinder" cameras the way you used you LCD ones. Simply point it somehwere away from your body and shoot. So, you have the control of this "new" way of shooting with the fun and unpredictablity of the old way...

Hi Mary,

You've received some great advice, from some of the best givers of advice, but I'd like to add a little. I think AV hit the nail on the head when he recommended that you "practice seeing." I used to feel like I needed to look at everything through my viewfinder before I could "see" the shot. The more I learned about composition, the more that need went away. I like to use the term virtual viewfinder. Pretend you're holding an open frame in front of your face as you go about your day. You can tilt it, angle it, move it farther away or closer. Do it every chance you get. Soon enough you'll start to see what will be in the frame, what won't, what you need to remove by changing your perspective or lens length (zoom), and what you want to leave inside it. You can do all of that before you even pick up the camera. Then it's just a matter of using your camera to duplicate the shot you've already taken in your mind. It will take practice.

There's a thread in the Viewfinder forum posted by Ronnoco called Photographic Composition "The Rules." (I don't know how to make a proper link to that thread, so I'll just post the link he provided.) There's a lot of good info here => http://www.photoinf.com/ If you haven't read much on composition before, this will probably help you understand why you like some of the things you like, and why certain shots just don't seem to work. I found it very helpful.

Good luck, and don't give up on the D50. It's a very powerful tool.

Paul

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Originally Posted by purplefin

hi, I recently bought a Nikon D50 Digital SLR, and i am used to using just my cellphone cam, and a cheap 100 dollar digital cam.

I like to line up artsy pics by moving all around and just angle it wierd till i see a nice pic. With the Nikon, its heavy and foreign to look through, and i have to have head glued to it, side to side in and out etc, which is a little odd. Would a cheaper cam with a lcd screen on back be more for someone like me? Or does it get easy, like with cell cam once used to it? Has anyone else here gone through this kind of transition and ended up with better pics once used to the change?

Does the nikon cut off or add any edges to the pictures or is what you see what you get?

when i look through the cheap digital, i get what i see, without zoom i think, is there a zero zoom like setting on the Nikon? Or is it always zoomed in or out.

Mary

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The Nikon D50 is like the D70, there is a mirror in the way so the LCD can't be used to preview or compose the image. You have to look through the view finder. The view finder is you see what you get.

The magnification factor is 1.5 so to get the a normal unzoomed image you set the lense at (50mm norm / 1.5 ) which gives you 33mm. Some 35mm film carmeras had 45mm lense but that is still a normal lense. Basical an lense setting shorter than the 28-33 mm lense lenght on DLS with 1.5/1.6 magnification factor would be wide angle anythine longer would be telephoto.

Thanks Alylum Steve! i love your pictures! especially the first one there with the bridge overhead, and both with the pipes. here some pics i took recently with my cellcam. i'll post three more i took with my nikon in a min.. Thanks for your help :D

Mary

:aureola:

here's three with my nikon... i put a mark on my pics (c), is that necessary though? seen lots of pics have it.. the phone pic here i think is the most similar style to the way i take a pics with my cellphone like in the pictures above, but of course i had my eye to the viewfinder here. i just had to move around a whole lot to get the pic. i guess thats what i'll just do when i want that kind of pic. the handycap one above would be hard though cause i was holding my cell about a foot from the ground next to my chair..

Thanks photophorous, i will read those articles on composition, i haven't read anything much yet except a little in my nikon manual that came with the camera. Thanks for your advice :)

Thanks GRF, i will try setting it to the 50mm zoom and see how that works