Taking up a new hobby

[contango]

I figure my next investment is going to be a decent tripod.

Take a look at the tripod you're proposing and think about what you want to do with it. My first tripod hardly ever got used because it was such a faff to set up and level, and too bulky and heavy to carry it to any of the places where I'd typically want a tripod. Some days I dealt with the inconvenience but a lot of the time I ended up just not taking the shots I wanted.

My second tripod cost a significant chunk of cash but it's small enough and light enough that I can take it just about anywhere. At the same time it's strong enough that I can use it to support the really big heavy stuff, as long as I don't fully extend it.

They say desirable attributes of a tripod are cheap, light, sturdy. You can have any two. Choose which two wisely.

 

[DZoolander]

The focus is a little near the bottom of the frame for my liking. You've certainly got the whole narrow depth of field worked out which is great, I'd just look to shift the focus a little further along the keyboard so you've got some out of focus keys, then sharp focus, then fading out of focus.

If you fire a flash directly at your subject the chances are it will look flat, maybe washed out, people will often have that "deer in the headlights" expression. You can diffuse the flash (if you want any decent effects from flash you'll want a flashgun even if your camera has a built-in flast), or bounce it off a suitably angled and coloured surface, or bounce it off your own reflector. Your reflector could be a metallic surface, it could be a piece of white card taped to the flashgun.

You can get some interesting effects with slow shutter speeds and second curtain flash sync, and also by bouncing the flash off a surface that isn't pure white (for shooting people a very slight off-white with a golden yellow tinge will work a lot better than a bold green!).

The great thing about shooting digital is that every time you take an experimental shot it costs you nothing, so you can experiment to your heart's content.

Definitely - and thanks for the suggestions!

Question - there's a flash sync timing setting on there as well that I have messed around with. I assume it's to set the timing of when the exposure happens relative to the flash.

What effect does that have?

(I'd mess around with it at home - but I'm at the office right now and your post got me wondering...lol)

 

[contango]

Definitely - and thanks for the suggestions!

Question - there's a flash sync timing setting on there as well that I have messed around with. I assume it's to set the timing of when the exposure happens relative to the flash.

What effect does that have?

(I'd mess around with it at home - but I'm at the office right now and your post got me wondering...lol)

Do you mean a choice between first shutter and second shutter sync? (It might be called something else, maybe leading and trailing, first curtain or similar).

If so it will only make a noticeable difference when using slow shutter speeds.

The "normal" approach is to fire the flash as the shutter opens (hence it's called first shutter, first curtain, leading, or similar). Then the shutter stays open for the exposure time and closes.

The alternative approach is to fire the flash just before the shutter closes (hence it's called second shutter, second curtain, trailing, or similar).

For short exposure times it makes no noticeable difference but if you've got something like a 4-second exposure of a child on a swing it makes quite a big difference. First shutter flash will show a frozen image as the flash illuminates the child, followed by a blurred trail as the child swings. Second shutter flash will show the blurred trail as the child swings, followed by a frozen image as the flash fires.

If you fiddle with it you'll see what I mean

 

[DZoolander]

Makes sense! Thank you!