You've got me at it now Hama

[Albedo]

lol, i was merely pointing out that EVERYONE has skills that they are born with!

 

nothing more Albedo!

 

I was not implying that anyone and everyone whos any good at stuff is "different"

 

Some people are born with a talent, others develope it over a lifetime, thats all.

 

I shall stick to answering those direct questions! and related to your camera! lol

 

I concur again H.

 

I want to go back to your post about the box, and one or two others and get a grip on those things, I have my homework:001_smile:

 

Am loppin an toppin tommorrow so may not get a chance to do the exercise till tuesday,.

 

I am pleased again that you had such a good day out with the LX5 today, shame you gotta cut trees too, theres always lunch break, but I'm not takeing mine to work just yet, might get dirty.

[Mark J]

i couldnt agree more, mother nature is uba artistic, we merely imitate the examples. In the not too distant future, design will be increasingly dictated by the rules layed out within nature, for it is optimal.

 

right down to the cellular level

 

"the design rules of nature" (mattheck)

 

Indeed. It's all triangles.

 

That said about artistic flair - you've still got to master your instrument and that comes from practice.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Indeed. It's all triangles.

 

That said about artistic flair - you've still got to master your instrument and that comes from practice.

 

Thats very true, im alright with the camera, give me a paintbrush and I would be a waste of space!

 

Im trying to steer Albedo away from the technical jargon of the manual and onto the real playing about with it which will get him more familiar with the interface than the book will, no substitute for the hands on approach (IMO)

[Albedo]

I'm just coppying all your posts into the hamma handbook at the moment mate, I like what you just said, I want to be steered onto the hands on approach and am so grateful for the effort. You will love the posh bottles of vino rojo I'm going to bung you for this. (I have a good local wine merchant and posh isn't too expensive, the first and the last in the row are quite decent)

 

I know you don't want bribes, but I owe you a token of gratitude

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Dont be daft, you dont owe me a thing, if you wanna give me something learn something, and get joy from the knowing, thats all i need.

 

Karma always delivers what i need.

 

When you post a great image and tell me how you achieved it, that will be MY joy.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Albedo, I have found a great cheat on the focal point of this camera, on the menu button there are four satelite buttons the top of the four is (focus) press this and use the four buttons to alter the squre (focal point) on screen and hey presto focal point now moved to the point in the frame YOU want it!

 

im loving this camera, its the Tits!

[Albedo]

Hi Hama.

 

I already knew that one from reading the instructions mate:001_smile: but thanks anyway for takeing the time to share that with me. You can also enlarge the focus area by turning the wheel when the focus button has been pressed.

 

I was busy this week and also did a complete system restore on the laptop, first time I ever did that so its technology overload for me. I have a long post already written about the exercises I was doing.

 

I'm getting to grips with shutter speed, aperture, and even ISO.

 

I've found our chat very useful and have also worked on the Rule of two thirds as well.

 

Glad your'e so pleased with yours,... some stunning photos are appearing in the fungi bits of the forum

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Its a great camera for certain, and everything is easy to use, work out, i havent touched the manual! lol never do, prefer it the hard way, trial and eror!

 

Hopefully without too much error though!

 

Looking forward to seeing what youve been upto with it, sounds like your really enjoying yourself with this new toy!

[Albedo]

I did some work based on your posts 88 and 110. Unfortunately the pics got all mixed up so nearly didn’t bother to post it, will try sort out the pics but they are only bottles in various degrees of focus.

 

Post 88 says play with various settings including focal lengths and Post 110 - the face in a crowd post which says select F2 and a long focal length

 

Focusing on the middle bottle in the row (I wanted the middle bottle to be the face in the crowd)and on flexi tripod, at a bout 8 or 10 feet away so zoom can be used.

 

At F2.8 on aperture priority using the step zoom at 50 mm (lowest F stop camera would allow at this focal length) (camera selected 1/160 shutter speed).Then at F5 using step zoom at 50mm (camera selected 1/80)

 

The outer bottles were less in focus than the centre… which was the desired effect.

 

I also did the exercise at 90mm to see if the effect would be more marked but the result was about the same.

 

I set the camera on pinhole and took the same pick at 90mm then looked at the EXIF for this image. Interesting to see that the camera chose the same shutter speed and F stop to achieve the same type of thing.

 

By looking at the exif info it was interesting for me that for the lower Fstop numbers (bigger hole) the speed is doubled from 1/60 to 1/125 (faster) and for F8 (smaller hole) the speed is halved from 1/60 to 1/30 (slower). This should mean that the same amount of light is reaching the sensor regardless of the Fstop.

 

You made a post about lenses of different focal lengths being the same at different Fstops, this exercise is helping me to understand that.

 

Then decided to set up the bottles more like a crowd with the face on the middle bottle being the target. Just repeated the above exercise and found that it leaned in the right direction but not any difference to speak of.

 

Then thinking about what I could change next decided to take control of the shutter speed and aperture by going fully manual and repeated the exercise on F2 but kept the speed at 1/60 not allowing the camera to do what it wants to do, which is to slow it down for the larger aperture. Started to see more stuff going out of focus away from the face.

 

At 1/125 (faster still) the camera would allow F2.7 as the biggest aperture, but again starting to see stuff dropping out of focus.

 

So decided to take it all the way and stayed on manual F2 (or what camera would allow) and took a few at faster speeds until the little line that shows the exposure dropping started to click down as less and less light is reaching the sensor and of course the LCD started to darken.

 

I would say that at F2.7 1/500 50mm I got my best result yet. (Bit dark but most marked focus on face in crowd)

 

Now I’m sure that I’m still doing something wrong or dumb, but whatever you say in response, I feel that I will be more able to understand it than before.

 

I have also found a good tutorial on the Rule of Thirds on t’internet and have experimented with this a bit. Although I feel that it should not be used as a hard and fast rule, again you are right Hama.

 

I looked through a few of my pics and found that I tend to put the subject in the middle quite a lot, the ROT will improve this.

 

The more I learn, the more I understand what you are on about and the more I realise that you know your onions on this.

 

P.S. I did this work and wrote the post a few days ago and it sound a bit gobbledygook to me now, but it was a key bit of effort for me in understanding the effects of the basic variables that we can control on this beastie:001_smile:

[LeeOulton]

Hi , hows things? Any chance i can use some of your photos on my website forestexplorers.co.uk ? With full credit you yourself? I am no where near as good as this at taking snaps, regards

Lee