Nikon User Thread

Jeremy Ordan

Jeremy Ordan

Major Contributor
Well seeing as how many Nikon D50 owners we have here we decided to start a little thread here in the Still Photography section to share techniques, discuss lenses, share images, and talk about how much we like this digital SLR camera. I think that we should set some general ground rules just so we can stay on topic and don't overly disturb the other discussions that for this thread we sort of adhere to:

Image Size
While we all love to see massive images to see the clarity, let's only try to post images that are 4"x6" or 6"x4" at no more than 72dpi? This will make all the images managable to view without having to scroll on and on.

When posting an image try to identify which lens you shot it on and any other setting that you would like to share.

When posting a corrected image, please also show the original. I think with the D50 being more of the entry level DSLR line of the Nikon brand it is useful if we can see not only what you shot but how you got that shot to where it is now.

Discussion:

Let's actually talk about things dealing with this camera. For example, night settings, moving away from the preset settings, same thing we all do with our DVX.

So let's have fun with it!

-Jeremy

EDIT:

If anyone needs an image hosted let me know and I can do it for you.
 
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Original
Duck.jpg


Photoshop Version
Duck%20Corrected%202.jpg


It was a really nice day, very bright, hot as hell here in Charlotte, NC so I went to the park. There are all these geese there and the park is just covered in ****. I brought a 50mm, 17-55mm, and 70-210mm lens with me.

This was shot on the long end of the 70-210mm 4-5.6 Nikkor. I know the ISO was 200 but would need to look at the RAW file for the exact shutter and aperture setting I used. In fact... I think I might have just had the camera set to auto for this one.

In Photoshop I adjusted the saturation, levels, curves, no sharpen, and then a tad of burning (it could use more on the water ripples).

I got a lot of duck pictures that day.

-Jeremy

EDIT: I'm still not very good with Photoshop, but I'm learning. I think that the brightness could be dropped and the blue of the water could be completely changed. I want to bring out more texture in the ripples still...
 
Hmmm...I like this thread idea alot. However, I am going to break a couple rules by occasionally posting d70 pictures. Anybody object?
 
First, I love the idea for the thread. The more we can learn about the d50 the better.

Second, I'm not too sure about the goose picture. The original is kind of grey and flat. I understand what you were trying to do with the cc, but the water looks odd and the goose appears to be a bit blown out. I'm no expert, so I could definitely be all wet.

Third, the d70 is basically the d50's step-brother, I would think we could definitely learn from each other.

Chris
 
I kind of like the second goose picture. It has a chrome-like look that gives it a surreal look. It reminds me of a picture I have in a book called Understanding Exposure where the photographer deliberately took a pic of some flamingos two stops overexposed and did something in developing to get a similar look, yet a little more extreme.
 
Regarding the thread I think that D70 & D70s users should participate... I mean the only difference is an extra wheel and a preview function, so yeah... we're all one happy family.

Now onto my photo.

I agree that it looks a bit washed. The water itself ends up looking weird, and the original... well is an original.

I think with some more time invested then it could be a decent photo, because I love the ducks reflection in the water, but beyond that... I don't know.

I got some great close ups that I will try to post tonight.

-Jeremy
 
Holy Cheap Nikon D50 Batman!

Holy Cheap Nikon D50 Batman!

WOW... Really cheap D50!

I bought a lens from someone on Ebay and it arrived shattered and just dead... I was pissed but they refunded my money so pretty much I have $69 and was bumming around Overstock.com looking at stuff and found this. $459 for the body only D50. That is really cheap seeing as how... well I don't want to think about it.

Just thought this would be the right place to post it.

-Jeremy
 
TheYankee said:
WOW... Really cheap D50!

I bought a lens from someone on Ebay and it arrived shattered and just dead... I was pissed but they refunded my money so pretty much I have $69 and was bumming around Overstock.com looking at stuff and found this. $459 for the body only D50. That is really cheap seeing as how... well I don't want to think about it.

Just thought this would be the right place to post it.

-Jeremy
Click to expand...

that is cheap, although a refurb. ritz/wolf has a deal thru saturday that is the d50 body + a 28-80 nikon lens for $599 that also includes a $50 gift card, a ritz tedddy bear (for your kid), 18 credits for photography classes (for your wife), some printer paper, credits toward processing, etc.

i got mine yesterday.
 
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Well for this I wish I had a good macro lens because it was shot on the Nikkor 70-210mm zoom lens. This is a really slow lens with a minimum focus distance of about 5.6'.

There is something about flowers that I like in photos. In life I step on them, pull leaves off, and in general don't pay much attention to them at all. In photos though there is something about an image of a beautiful flower that really grabs me

I was leaving the park and saw this... I don't know... Sunflower? It was just really nice and I tried to get in as close as possible. You can see the really shallow DOF in the original, and that was something I couldn't clean up in Photoshop.

My treatment was all levels, curves, and a slight +3 on the hue. I sharpened using the Unsharp mask with a 200%, 1 pixel, and tolerance of 1. I think the image looks good, just a bit soft around the petals.

Original
Flower.jpg


Corrected
Flower%20Corrected.jpg



Comment's, critiques, death threats welcome :)

-Jeremy
 
OK... I wanted to do one more... To begin with I am going to show the original image and then the corrected image and then what in the world I actually did.

Relection%20Normal.jpg


Shot on the 17mm end of the stock lens. I saw a tree reflected in this nasty muddy water and just couldn't resist. I don't know if it was the memory of that Forrest Gump running along with the mountain reflected or what, but I needed to snap this photo. I had to get low enough and wide enough to get the whole image in frame.

For the correction I really went crazy on levels, curves, selective color, hue, contrast, and what not. Ultimately the levels got so insane that I decided to just crop the reflection in the water, rotate 180 degrees and use just the cropped selection for the final image. I sharpened and here it is. I sort of like it and think it is calming.

Reflection.jpg


The reason I wanted to share this was because I think that I am so used to shooting with the DVX that I try to get the right framing immediately and never think to select just part of the image as having more weight than the whole image.

I know it isn't a big step forward in general for my photography, but at least in seeing things differently in the digital darkroom this image represents, to me at least, a nice step forward.

-Jeremy
 
On this one, it's hard to tell by the colors that it's a reflection. The ripple in the water give it away, though. I think I'd like to see the water a slightly more natural color.
 
Blaine said:
On this one, it's hard to tell by the colors that it's a reflection. The ripple in the water give it away, though. I think I'd like to see the water a slightly more natural color.
Click to expand...

I agree... I just don't know how to do that :) Thanks for the feedback, Blaine, now if you could only teach me how to do that :)

-Jeremy
 
TheYankee said:
I agree... I just don't know how to do that :) Thanks for the feedback, Blaine, now if you could only teach me how to do that :)

-Jeremy
Click to expand...
Yeah, I wish... then we could both do it... :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
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