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As an anon who pops in and out of here a few times a year...let me say,
Holy shit. Do not take any advice from here right now.
/p/ has never been some shining sea of amazing photographic knowledge, but it's really bad right now, even in the realm of gear where you at least generally had a small handful of reasonable voices that is not present now.
For those of you trying to get a start here's some real advice:
>Caveat emptor. If you don't know what this means google that shit and learn a little.
>Anyone who gets dogmatic over any of this stuff isn't to be listened to.
>Double/triple/quadruple check anything you hear here. There's a running ton of review sources on the internet. Read enough of the big ones to get a feel for how they think. See if how they think mostly agrees with how you think or not.
>Gear isn't photography. It's an important part, but it isn't by far the most important part.
>The three things you can do to get better at photography are to read more books about photography and art in general, take more directed pictures (e.g. go out with an idea and try to make it happen, then sort out in what ways and why you were successful/unsuccessful), and study pictures you find interesting
>when it comes to gear, use what you can afford that works and most all of it works pretty well these days.
>remember photography is a skill, you get better through practice and study, the creative side comes as you master your tools and start thinking "I want something that looks like x"
>squash any toxic attitudes. That shit leaks through to your real life no matter how much you think it doesn't.
/p/ cycles up and down as people come and go, with luck it'll cycle back at least somewhat up soon, but I won't hold my breath. In the meantime, if you're truly interested in photography, much of what you see and hear here is trolling bullshit.
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dumb image
good text
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>>2765307
Fair enough
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I've heard the whole "go out with an idea to focus yourself", but when I'm still trying to mess around with exposure and composition, what the hell am I supposed to take pictures of? I'm at the point where I think that kind of thing would only really hinder me from taking pictures as I can't get to that higher level thinking as a photographer.
Are there any easy beginner assignments that would give me focus while still letting me take a ton of pictures to figure out how to produce the best image with my camera?
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>>2765610
Google up "Photography 101 assignments"
>exposure and composition
Personally, I'm not a fan of working on multiple factors at once. It's possible, but in my opinion, unless you have someone who knows what they're looking at to give you feedback on what's going on, it complicates figuring out why something didn't go right or just plain old being overly focused on one factor anyway. This is a pedagogical argument though, so I won't plague you further with it.
Anyway, for composition, go out and find something like a statue and compose it via the various compositional "rules". Don't bother trying to find compositions yet, force them on something. Then experiment around with different compositions from the classic ones. Get back and study those. Do this for a few times, then go out and look for a specific kind of composition (feel free to take random shots along the way, but try to keep to the whole "one exposure per motive" thing for the assignment). If you don't have something out and about you can do this with, set up a still life on a table and shoot that. I'd highly recommend you do this in aperture priority mode. We don't care about the technical aspects of the exposure here...just the compositional aspects. We can bring the two together later.
In terms of composition, I'd also tell you to play around with the aperture in aperture priorty mode to get a feel for how it affects depth of field (again, in priority mode because I don't want you worrying about balancing shutter speed, I just want to isolate and explore aperture). Then, I'd tell you to find some moving subjects, and play with various shutter speeds in shutter priority. I'd tell you to do things like attempting to track a moving subject while the shutter is open (the panning technique used often in motor sports, for instance). See how long you can leave the shutter open and get sharp results and how focal length affects that.
Then finally (continued)
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>>2765622
I'd tell you to do similar assignments but now using either priority mode plus exposure compensation or manual to get the exposure you want. I'd also have you start playing with ISO here to see its effects.
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bumping to spread the word
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>>2765610
[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]
Camera-Specific Properties: Camera Software Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh Image-Specific Properties: Image Orientation Top, Left-Hand Horizontal Resolution 250 dpi Vertical Resolution 250 dpi Image Created 2013:11:08 09:46:41 Color Space Information sRGB Image Width 1000 Image Height 1000
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>it's really bad right now, even in the realm of gear
Of course it is; ac had a heart attack. He may not post here any more but a disturbance in the gearfag-force that significant will definitely have an impact.
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>>2765625
Basic, but well put together info anon.
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>>2766888
Who is ac?
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>>2766908
An old trip friend.
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>>2765307
Good image that's relevant to the text. OP sounds as stupid as the image.
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>>2766893
>basic
Yeah, I think a lot of the problem people have with just mastering their camera is that they try to jump in too deep. I think part of this is that they're trying to make pictures that look good in addition to just figuring out what does what. IMO, just going out and seeing basic compositions through the viewfinder, and moving through the various triangle settings to see what they do in different lighting is the same as a musician practicing scales or an illustrator filling notebook after notebook practicing drawing circles, squares, and triangles, then going on to practice showing volume, then experimenting around with different lighting effects on different volumes.
In photography, there's too much emphasis placed on the gestalt, especially in web forums like here. This is fine for those who've mastered the basics, but a quick look around shows people like that to be in the distinct minority.
I'd also add in that how people tend to only post what they think of as their best is harmful to the learning experience. This is actually a problem on both ends because those who know usually don't bother replying to those who obviously don't know, but part of this is because you can have a thread with 100 images posted by different people all with the same problem, and no one has bothered learning from the feedback given to others (extreme example and some do learn like this, but again, we're talking about a minority). The idea that one should only show highly curated images silos knowledge and presents a false air of competence. Even the likes of Henri Cartier Bresson burned roll after roll trying to get a single shot (I wish I still had the link to the website that showed his attempts at getting the guy lined up with the stairwell)...I mean think about that...Mr. One Exposure Per Motive himself couldn't keep to that ideal standard. We're doing ourselves a major disservice in general by pretending everything always works out.
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>>2766938
Shut up.
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>>2766938
>n photography, there's too much emphasis placed on the gestalt
To follow along with your analogy about music, when you're practicing, you do it in private, in your home, or in a sound proof room. You don't go sit out on the street with your case open, or invite an audience. /p/, instagram, facebook, twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, they're all presentation mediums. The assumption is that, unless it's clearly stated as being otherwise, it's a final product ready for consumption. There is nothing wrong with practicing, or learning, or experimenting, but there is also something to be said for coming up with a final product once in a while.
also, understanding of the settings comes from a reading of the manual. The exposure triangle is not hard to understand at all, and takes maybe a week of use of a camera to understand. To be a year into photography still "trying to learn to manually expose" is to be doing something wrong. (In most cases, trying to manually expose at all is doing something wrong, but that's another story)
Yes, HCB burned through roll after roll, but he wasn't posting and sharing all of those photos, and most would never ever see the light of day because he knew that they were just testing, experimenting, or failures for other reasons.
If you know what you're trying to achieve with your photo, you should know right away what's wrong with it, and should know what you need to have done to fix it. What happens around here is that people don't know what they're trying to do in the first place, so they post their photos that have bokeh, or sharp detail, or a semi correct exposure, and hope that /p/ will tell them how to click a preset and make it a good photo.
Posting bad photos for the sake of learning is a good idea when you are self aware. "I realize this isn't a successful photo, and I know it's because of these reasons, please help me to adjust my approach to be able to work around these issues in the future?"
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>>2766965
>Posting bad photos for the sake of learning is a good idea when you are self aware. "I realize this isn't a successful photo, and I know it's because of these reasons, please help me to adjust my approach to be able to work around these issues in the future?"
I can't agree with this harder.
>If you know what you're trying to achieve with your photo, you should know right away what's wrong with it, and should know what you need to have done to fix it. What happens around here is that people don't know what they're trying to do in the first place, so they post their photos that have bokeh, or sharp detail, or a semi correct exposure, and hope that /p/ will tell them how to click a preset and make it a good photo.
This is where you and I diverge somewhat. You're assuming a level of mastery to be able to figure out what's wrong with an image. As an example, one of my friends whom I've been helping learn the basics finally broke down yesterday and came to me with an image. He did know it didn't look right, but couldn't figure out why. It was a subject in open shade where the background was bright enough to cause the subject to be slightly underexposed. The histogram looked "good" to him, and when he tried doing the stuff he thought should fix it (which was along the right lines), it was ruining other parts of the image. The fix was simply raising midtones in the curves tool, but while he knows enough to identify something that doesn't look right, to identify general underexposure, he didn't know enough to start dealing with a situation like that or to prevent it in the first place (we ended up talking for an hour over exactly how the meter works). There's a lot of this kinda knowing that's here. Knowing enough to know something isn't quite right, maybe even kinda knowing what its related to, but not being able to accurately Dx it.
(continued)
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>>2766965
>To follow along with your analogy about music, when you're practicing, you do it in private, in your home, or in a sound proof room. You don't go sit out on the street with your case open, or invite an audience. /p/, instagram, facebook, twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, they're all presentation mediums. The assumption is that, unless it's clearly stated as being otherwise, it's a final product ready for consumption. There is nothing wrong with practicing, or learning, or experimenting, but there is also something to be said for coming up with a final product once in a while.
I get that, but I think it's the wrong attitude for most social media venues. Honestly, I think that social media is the perfect arena for sharing and showing the actual creative process with a few exceptions that should be your curated final works (maybe like Flickr/500px for curated)...but that's begging of an openness and honesty that I doubt we'll ever see. I mean, have you noticed that for the most part photography is the only visual art where you basically never see anyone posting works in progress?
>understanding comes from reading the manual
For some. Different people learn differently. The only real understanding I've ever gotten from reading a manual is where to find the buttons. I'm one of those that has to do shit for myself and see the results of doing x then y versus y then x before understanding forms.
>To be a year into photography still "trying to learn to manually expose" is to be doing something wrong
I mostly agree. If you've been shooting for a couple of weeks and don't have at least a basic idea of how exposure works, there's something wrong with what you're doing. That said, there's a difference between getting the basics of it and developing an instinctual understanding of various lighting situations is something that takes time and dedicated practice.
But back to this:
>What happens around here[snip]click a preset and make...
You're right.
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>>2766970
Knowing what's wrong, but not knowing the tools to fix it is great, and an excellent reason to bring a failed photo to the community for help, but if you go through the photos that are posted here, a lot if it is not that. A lot of it is half assed photos with no thought to background or timing, or subject, and just "How can I make this better" because people are seeing that their photos from their thousand dollar cameras aren't coming out as polished and thought-out as the ones they see in magazines, and they need to know which filter to choose to fix it.
There isn't enough thought going into the photo in the first place, because people are so caught up with maximizing detail, and not clipping highlights, and what dof do I want, and they aren't actually thinking about photos themselves. Again, this is fine, but if you're going to present a photo, it shouldn't be the stuff you get from your private practice time unelss you're stuck unable to achieve a specific intent. If you're showing people your work, it should be something you shot with intent, and are presenting for consumption.
Failed photos and practice photos really shouldn't be shared, and they lower the overall quality and expected content of the community, and of the art itself. It's even in the rules for the board - Post only photos that show at least trace amounts of thoughtful composition. Do not upload random snapshots.
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>>2766979
To be clear, I'm not at all arguing that the system isn't abused/that even a slight majority of images posted somewhere like here should be posted because a little thought and research can identify most all of the problems with many ultrabeginner images. My point is more a general one.
That said, recall that this is all a giant feedback loop. While newbies aren't necessarily doing all that they could be, those that are aren't necessarily getting feedback either -- just being lumped in with those that aren't really trying. This, over time, hurts the community in general, because you don't have a progression of varied skill levels supporting each other. You end up with a handful who have a clue, a bunch of armchair experts, and a cycle of newbies who either get frustrated and go straight to shitposting or even worse, learn at the hands of the armchair experts.
It'd take a lot of effort from a lot of people to actually improve this community, and frankly I don't think there's enough people who care enough about the quality of posts here to put forth that effort.
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>>2767011
I also agree with what you're saying here.
I think that the low quality of the images being posted initially hurts the shooter, because without that "grabbing on point" there is nobody that is going to take the time to help, so the artist needs to at least get to a point where his intent is there, and is fairly obvious, for anyone to bother. OR, he needs to post outside of the RPT, in his own thread, with a very convincing, humble, self aware post about the photos.
Just dropping your terrible photos in a thread and saying "I shot these yesterday" isn't going to get anybody to put in any effort.
When I see a guy who posted a photo of a comletely random scene, with a whole lot of distractions, in bad light, with no apparent reason for having take the photo, I'm not going to reply to that. That guy doesn't even know what the photo is supposed to be, so how can I help him?
But if someone has something that's an obvious attempt at a real photo, and I happen to see it, and it seems as though he's hoping for comments and critique, I happily give it.
Overall, the board would be improved if people posted the same number of photos, but put more thought into those photos. There would be less garbage, less dismissal of poor photographers due to the sheer volume of white noise, etc.
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>>2767056
>I'm proud of my ignorance.
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>>2767056
The two of them were clearly reading it. Or are you just upset that someone made a post on a public site that wasn't specifically directed at entertaining you personally?
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Mirrorless shills are out in full force on this board.
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>>2767056
>No one is going to read this.
I did, because /p/ could be a community where's nothing but photography.
Reputation harms other communities to be blind for the essential, gear and shit posts do the same on here, which is why I just lurk and at that lurk very occasionally.
I wish more people would be interested in /p/, just like you two in discussion.
By the way, this is my first post. Somehow I'd like to say thank you!
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>>2768711
I'm OP and I'm still hanging around anon. We need more people like you to start posting. C&C, pictures, hell, even reasonable opinions with respect to gear is fine. The more people we get making a positive contribution (positive isn't always nice btw), the better this place is.
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>>2766970
>Dx it
you're in the medical field i take it
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>>2768711
I'm one of those guys, and you're welcome. Post more, please. Be the change you wish to see in the world.
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