RELEASE THE PHOTONS!
So, at the indirect urging of family members, I got myself a present. Look, ma, I even found the self-timer!
It's a Nikon D60, second lowest level of their DSLRs. It is, naturally, named Alastor, which nevacaruso pointed out as the obvious. I bought it (along with a second lens (55-200mm), tripod, assorted accessories, etcetera) for noticeable discount at Microcenter's digital camera sale.
I had long been wanting a digital camera, and had often entertained myself by browsing reviews of compact cameras, not thinking I could afford or figure out how to use an SLR. However, I would usually come out frustrated, as the two things I dislike most about digital cameras--noisy images and slow shutter times--plague many cameras to this day. But then I got a look at the sale prices on the entry level DSLRs, read a few reviews, and got hooked. I was originally looking at the D40, but 4 more megapixels and an autofocusing kit lens for a mere $50 increase yanked me up to the D60.
I've never owned a camera any more elaborate than a point and shoot, and barely had any idea what an f-stop was. But this thing *can* be used as a point and shoot camera, and now that I've started futsing around with some of the manual settings, I'm a little proud of what I can do--only a few days after getting it, with barely any photography experience. Crappy self-timer photos aside, of course.
A few more photos below the cut. Links lead to unedited images--full-size, etcetera.
Once I had everything unwrapped and the battery charged, I took it for a quick spin down my street. Unfortunately, it was just after sunset, the light was poor, and I was only just getting the hang of the point-and-shoot modes, so pretty much everything is either blurry or overflashed. I did snap a few neat pictures of the cloudy fading sky though...
Just a bit of fire left up there.
The raw version of this is currently my desktop.
I spent Saturday hangin' out with the Usual Suspects (mllelaurel, nevacaruso, and pookit), and brought Alastor with the intention of using the internet for one of its Two Primal Purposes. (Cat pictures and porn.)
Her name is Claw, and she's a silky, dignified beauty who tolerated the flash and glistened smugly. Also, I love selective desaturization.
Claw's human provides attention.
I then ambushed a dandelion head in the garden. I think I should have gone for manual focus there, as the auto didn't seem to work quite right, but I was only just figuring out how to do that.
When driving to New England Mobile Book Fair (none of them had been there, and I had to fix this!), we wandered past this house in Newton with this crazy-adorable Tiny Cupola Porch. We squeed. The colors looked a little odd, and I'm not sure my clumsy Photoshopping did anything to improve them. But, hey, Tiny Cupola Porch!
After bookgasms, we went to New England Soup Factory for soupgasms, where we found random bowls of fruit in the window of dubious species and artificality. They were lemon-shaped but orange in color, so we dubbed them orons. I entertained myself with my camera during the wait for the single bathroom. The one with the green nose has character.
Today, having requested a vacation day from work (pretty much to have some time to relax), I decided to make some serious attempts to photograph things.
I was pretty much dicking around at this point, just getting the hang of the semi-manual modes and so forth, but I got such unexpectedly gorgeous colors that came out of my housemate's liquor cabinet that I got distracted.
Badly distracted.
Oo, shiny!
Then I Got Serious, cleared off a portion of the polished and faintly reflective dining room table, jammed a tripod into a corner of the room, and got to work. I had enough nifty things from my recent origami spree to have entertaining subjects without even leaving the room or borrowing more of my housemate's stuff.
Underexposed, but I like it. At this point I was going completely manual, as the camera was being contrary with my desire to not use flash. (It kept trying to lock up the shutter. I discovered that setting everything manually, down to the focus, bypassed its concerns.) The only light was cloudy sunlight coming in through the window to one side, but I think I dealt with that well.
Another shot of the boxes that came out nicely. These are both from Tomoko Fuse's Origami Boxes book--y'know, the one with the awesome boxes and incomprehensible directions. Each of them will likely be the first in a set, as I have matching papers in different colors that I want to play with. And the cloudy sideways light made the texture of the paper pop wonderfully.
I also had these patchwork balls I'd made, mostly to use up stray pieces of paper, that I was quite fond of. I wasn't quite able to compose the shot I wanted--the focus and depth of field wasn't quite behaving, and composing things with your camera pinned to a tripod is hard. So I randomly stacked them and decided to have another go. This time I went down to a very small aperture, to get everything in focus, and had to bump up to shutter speeds in the one-second range. Huzzah tripods and two-second shutter delay! I just love the clarity in some of these images. In retrospect, though, I should've shot raw, to try to rescue the blown highlights.
And that is the best for now. *hugs her camera*
It's a Nikon D60, second lowest level of their DSLRs. It is, naturally, named Alastor, which nevacaruso pointed out as the obvious. I bought it (along with a second lens (55-200mm), tripod, assorted accessories, etcetera) for noticeable discount at Microcenter's digital camera sale.
I had long been wanting a digital camera, and had often entertained myself by browsing reviews of compact cameras, not thinking I could afford or figure out how to use an SLR. However, I would usually come out frustrated, as the two things I dislike most about digital cameras--noisy images and slow shutter times--plague many cameras to this day. But then I got a look at the sale prices on the entry level DSLRs, read a few reviews, and got hooked. I was originally looking at the D40, but 4 more megapixels and an autofocusing kit lens for a mere $50 increase yanked me up to the D60.
I've never owned a camera any more elaborate than a point and shoot, and barely had any idea what an f-stop was. But this thing *can* be used as a point and shoot camera, and now that I've started futsing around with some of the manual settings, I'm a little proud of what I can do--only a few days after getting it, with barely any photography experience. Crappy self-timer photos aside, of course.
A few more photos below the cut. Links lead to unedited images--full-size, etcetera.
Once I had everything unwrapped and the battery charged, I took it for a quick spin down my street. Unfortunately, it was just after sunset, the light was poor, and I was only just getting the hang of the point-and-shoot modes, so pretty much everything is either blurry or overflashed. I did snap a few neat pictures of the cloudy fading sky though...
Just a bit of fire left up there.
The raw version of this is currently my desktop.
I spent Saturday hangin' out with the Usual Suspects (mllelaurel, nevacaruso, and pookit), and brought Alastor with the intention of using the internet for one of its Two Primal Purposes. (Cat pictures and porn.)
Her name is Claw, and she's a silky, dignified beauty who tolerated the flash and glistened smugly. Also, I love selective desaturization.
Claw's human provides attention.
I then ambushed a dandelion head in the garden. I think I should have gone for manual focus there, as the auto didn't seem to work quite right, but I was only just figuring out how to do that.
When driving to New England Mobile Book Fair (none of them had been there, and I had to fix this!), we wandered past this house in Newton with this crazy-adorable Tiny Cupola Porch. We squeed. The colors looked a little odd, and I'm not sure my clumsy Photoshopping did anything to improve them. But, hey, Tiny Cupola Porch!
After bookgasms, we went to New England Soup Factory for soupgasms, where we found random bowls of fruit in the window of dubious species and artificality. They were lemon-shaped but orange in color, so we dubbed them orons. I entertained myself with my camera during the wait for the single bathroom. The one with the green nose has character.
Today, having requested a vacation day from work (pretty much to have some time to relax), I decided to make some serious attempts to photograph things.
I was pretty much dicking around at this point, just getting the hang of the semi-manual modes and so forth, but I got such unexpectedly gorgeous colors that came out of my housemate's liquor cabinet that I got distracted.
Badly distracted.
Oo, shiny!
Then I Got Serious, cleared off a portion of the polished and faintly reflective dining room table, jammed a tripod into a corner of the room, and got to work. I had enough nifty things from my recent origami spree to have entertaining subjects without even leaving the room or borrowing more of my housemate's stuff.
Underexposed, but I like it. At this point I was going completely manual, as the camera was being contrary with my desire to not use flash. (It kept trying to lock up the shutter. I discovered that setting everything manually, down to the focus, bypassed its concerns.) The only light was cloudy sunlight coming in through the window to one side, but I think I dealt with that well.
Another shot of the boxes that came out nicely. These are both from Tomoko Fuse's Origami Boxes book--y'know, the one with the awesome boxes and incomprehensible directions. Each of them will likely be the first in a set, as I have matching papers in different colors that I want to play with. And the cloudy sideways light made the texture of the paper pop wonderfully.
I also had these patchwork balls I'd made, mostly to use up stray pieces of paper, that I was quite fond of. I wasn't quite able to compose the shot I wanted--the focus and depth of field wasn't quite behaving, and composing things with your camera pinned to a tripod is hard. So I randomly stacked them and decided to have another go. This time I went down to a very small aperture, to get everything in focus, and had to bump up to shutter speeds in the one-second range. Huzzah tripods and two-second shutter delay! I just love the clarity in some of these images. In retrospect, though, I should've shot raw, to try to rescue the blown highlights.
And that is the best for now. *hugs her camera*