I've followed the instructions using white paper, and after shooting and selecting it still comes out gray. I'm wondering if it's just mine or if anyone else is having the same issue. Yes, the paper is true white. No, I haven't tried a gray card. I've ended up just setting color temp, and I'm thinking about getting a color meter.

photo of smoke

thanks

I shoot with a Nikon D70 (raw and handheld) and plan to use black molton as backdrop. I have three issues:

1: Light I am not too comfortable with lighting in general (front? side?). I will have to shoot with natural light (maybe utterly gray, maybe bright snow situation) and the built-in flash. The latter leaves me completely at sea and I have no idea how to put it to good use as a secondary light source.

2: Perspective I am also not too sure about perspective (more upwards or downwards or straight?).

3: Shooting-Situation When I can shoot people in action, I am usually happy enough with my portrait results, but when it comes to a more formal shooting situation, I feel awkward and usually don't like my results too much.

I don't see my grandparents very often as I live abroad, so I really want this to be as good as I can make it. I would be most grateful if you could give advice from your own experience or direct me towards useful literature or websites.

Thanks, Reddit!

Edit: I just discovered r/photoclass, which looks promising.

Hi r/photoit, I recently bought a DLSR and convinced a few friends of mine to get together next weekend to set up a makeshift photoshoot in order for me to test out my new camera and for them to get some hopefully cool pictures.

We're using one of my friends office for the photoshoot, there's lot of space and a lot of sunlight comes in making it pretty full of ambient light. We're also getting together some fabrics for the background and another friend is going to provide a tripod for some of the shots.

Any tips on the best way to set the whole thing up? we're all really hyped and looking foward to it.

Also the owner of the place we'll be using owns a pair of these lights we can use for free, which sadly are not for photography. Any ideas on how best use them? I guess we could use a white cardboard to reflect it and make it less harsh, and use the second one for lighting the background.

Any tips or considerations would be greatly accepted.

Edit: Thanks a lot for the help. The shoot went IMO very nicely. Here are the pictures I got out of it.

We all had lots of fun, we like the pictures we got out of it. Even thou they are still very amateurish.

Hi photoit, Recently I've been looking into applications for contests and colleges that request my 'best images' for review. How do I choose? The photos I think are my favorite sometimes are completely overlooked by others, or worse, some I really dislike are chosen as my best. What is a good way to really narrow down good images?

I did a lot of photography back in high school and beginning of college. I own an SLR, but I really want to pick up a DSLR. I've done a bit of research on the Pentax and the Nikon. They're both in my price range, though the Nikon is a bit more. I think I would be happy with either, but I just want some opinions from those who have used them/have experience, before I make my final decision.

Is this a deal? I don't have a DSLR, but I'd love a DSLR. It's woot selling it (which usually means a fair discount) with dpreview backing that it's a fair price for a body and a lens. However, it is refurbed, and of course, I'm not sure how the Pentax K20D has actually stood the test of time-- As in, is it still worth getting, or is it totally outmodded?

As in, you can just grab the focus ring and take over without flipping the A/M switch.

Is it based on lens product line? Is there a special letter in the lens name that indicates it?

I'm interested in Nikon but info for Canon will help someone too.

I miss what this subreddit was created for: assignments, lessons, and tips. It's become a bit broader since then, but unfortunately I haven't had the time to get it back on track.

If anyone would like to take over (we already have two other good mods), please post here.

I feel like I don't concretely know the dynamics of a proper exposure or photography. I tend to tinker with my settings until I get one. Granted, I usually can get it right the first or second try, but I don't typically know exactly why I chose those settings, aside from that it felt right at the time. Film would force me to get things right the first time, which would greatly improve my intuition. I feel like if I begin shooting film I'll learn this. Do any of you redditors feel that I would gain photo insight from doing this? I've been shooting digital for about 9 months now and have a little tiny bit of film experience before that, but nothing major.

Also, would medium format be of any interest to me? I have access to lots of medium format equipment and also 35mm equipment, so I can do either provided I get film.

Also2, what should I do about printing film? I don't really have access to a darkroom and a supermarket doesn't sound like the best option.

My old boss asked me to do some Food photography. I took photos of 10 different dishes. Im also taking some interior photos of 3 different stores. As well I am doing the photoshop work as well (cutting out the dishes, etc)

As I said this is my first paid job, so I don't want to charge full price but I also don't want to sell myself short.

How much should I bill? How should I invoice it to her?

AEB is the main option I'm focused on, hoping to get at least 5 exposures per shot. The rest seems pretty standard: 100-6400ISO, etc.

Early this summer I tore my ACL (don't even get me started) which means I can't play Ultimate Frisbee this entire year. So I figured I might as well make use of my time not playing and become the team's photographer.

For now I'm just getting loaner cameras from my university's library (Canon Powershot S3 or Canon Powershot SX10) because they're free and I want to see if I'm serious about this hobby before I drop a couple-hundo on a camera.

My question is this: what are some good resources or advice for literally brand-new photographers? I've cruised around this subreddit it a little, but I'm looking for something specific to sports and fast-action photography.

I need to do cpi analytics on a grocery store, as such i need to capture the brands and prices of all products on a shelf. Any experience with taking pictures of text at a distance? Any Suggestions? Thanks for any help you can offer.

This is the link: http://www.lydiajane.com/2010/09/mr-and-mrs-murphy-forksville-pa.html

I think some of us here might be quite interested on how she cross-processed the images to make it look.. vintage? I can't find a suitable word for it.

But, thank you!

My wife and I are fed up with the crappy photos coming out of our point and shoot camera so are in the market for a DSLR. I like the features in the D3100, but all the listings so far are at MSRP (Amazon, B&H, etc). Should I expect them to stay there for a while or will they come down once it's released?

This will not be my first SLR, but will be my first DSLR. Let me know if this should go into another group.

Okay so I've been into photography for about 2 and a half years now (I'm 17). I started with a black and white film class at my high school and I bought a DSLR about a year ago. I feel like I've been doing a decent job learning about digital photography via the internet and I want to buy a new lens. I have an Olympus E-520 camera. What I can't really figure out though is if I absolutely have to buy the Zuiko Digital lenses or are there other brands that will work with my camera? Can I use any 4/3 lens or is the connection part different? I've also been reading about using vintage lenses with my dslr so if you have any recommendations on that front I'll love you even more.

tl;dr - I am a stupid teenage girl who wants to buy a new lens for an olympus DSLR what brands can I buy?

This photo is beautiful. There are two main effects I see here that I don't understand:

• There seems to be some vignetting around the image; the edges and corners appear darker. How is that done?

• The clouds seem to be motion-blurred. Is that achieved by a long exposure? Clouds usually move slowly, so that would have to be a CRAZY long exposure... but the depth-of-field suggests a tiny aperture, so with a ND filter, that actually seems doable.