Fun with my new Nikon

[cloudasc]

I just recently aquired a Nikon D5100, and I am extremely satisfied with its performance, versatility, and quality. I've taken over 200 pictures with it in the last 4 days.

You can click on the pictures and they will take you to max size photobucket allows me to without paying. Also the Titles are hyperlinked to individual albums.

The pictures below and more can be found at: http://www.photobucket.com/LordNikon/

Below are some of my favorite pictures taken since I've aquired my new camera.
Food:



Nature:




Urban:







The pictures above and more can be found at: http://www.photobucket.com/LordNikon/

Let me know what you think, and I am always welcome to suggestions. Most if not all of these pictures were taken with a 35mm dx format lense.

[Honda_Lady]

very nice looking pictures. good quality too I like them.

[Tnwagn]

Since you are currently using free hosting, I would suggest moving to flickr for your online image needs. It is a much more community-driven site and has a much better following than photobucket. The tools it offers put photobucket to shame. Also, if you ever decide to upgrade to a Pro account, which is incredibly affordable, any images you have already uploaded will have their full resolutions available after the upgrade.

As for the photos, they look standard for what most people shoot when they first get a new camera. Shoot as much as you can for the next year and just learn what you like best and not necessarily what others are going to tell you looks good. It's up to you to develop an eye for what looks good.

That said, I will offer one bit of my opinion on editing. False color and selective color can be a powerful tool when appropriately used. I find the examples you have shown to be a bit off from what I consider to look nice. For example,

Selective color works well when the color being highlighted stands out from the background. Red on black and white is a time-tested example. Your choice of muted purple on greyscale is hard to pick out. The example of the Honda Fit's taillights is a much better use of the technique.

Finally, thanks for using the [URL] and [IMG] tags as you are. I have done this since day 1 and love it anytime I see someone else doing the same.

[cloudasc]

Since you are currently using free hosting, I would suggest moving to flickr for your online image needs. It is a much more community-driven site and has a much better following than photobucket. The tools it offers put photobucket to shame. Also, if you ever decide to upgrade to a Pro account, which is incredibly affordable, any images you have already uploaded will have their full resolutions available after the upgrade.

As for the photos, they look standard for what most people shoot when they first get a new camera. Shoot as much as you can for the next year and just learn what you like best and not necessarily what others are going to tell you looks good. It's up to you to develop an eye for what looks good.

That said, I will offer one bit of my opinion on editing. False color and selective color can be a powerful tool when appropriately used. I find the examples you have shown to be a bit off from what I consider to look nice. For example,



Selective color works well when the color being highlighted stands out from the background. Red on black and white is a time-tested example. Your choice of muted purple on greyscale is hard to pick out. The example of the Honda Fit's taillights is a much better use of the technique.

Finally, thanks for using the [URL] and [IMG] tags as you are. I have done this since day 1 and love it anytime I see someone else doing the same.

That bush with the purple berry's, if I hadn't used the color picker feature, you probably wouldn't even notice the berries, I walked past that bush at least 20 times before I even noticed the purple berry's, and it wasn't until after I started messing with the color picker, that I saw what I considered "potential".


I will definately have to check out flickr for my photo uploading needs. All the pictures I have displayed also have not been editted at all. The effects that were done were processed by the camera. My choice for subject matter on the day(s) I took all these pictures were limitted.

They are actually from around a hospital I was at for my son, as he was born with bilateral club feet, and he was having his corrective surgery. The main reason we got this camera is to take picture of him, everything else is a bonus to fulfill my creative photography desires.

Here are some pictures of my son Nicolas.
People:




He has a multi color light up toy, where the lights are synchronized to the music, and he absolutely loves it. The pictures below were taken just playing around with the camera and the toy on.

[Tnwagn]

That bush with the purple berry's, if I hadn't used the color picker feature, you probably wouldn't even notice the berries, I walked past that bush at least 20 times before I even noticed the purple berry's, and it wasn't until after I started messing with the color picker, that I saw what I considered "potential".


I will definately have to check out flickr for my photo uploading needs. All the pictures I have displayed also have not been editted at all. The effects that were done were processed by the camera. My choice for subject matter on the day(s) I took all these pictures were limitted.

Ah, limiting yourself to the in-camera editing capabilities will definitely hold you back. While I would suggest working on your technique first and worrying about editing later, GIMP is a wonderful photo editing program that has almost all the same functionality as Photoshop, yet it is free and open-source.

Congratulations on your son by the way.

[cloudasc]

Ah, limiting yourself to the in-camera editing capabilities will definitely hold you back. While I would suggest working on your technique first and worrying about editing later, GIMP is a wonderful photo editing program that has almost all the same functionality as Photoshop, yet it is free and open-source.

Congratulations on your son by the way.

I just recently downloaded GIMP 2, it looks pretty feature packed, but I haven't really had time to dive into it too much. In the past I have used photoshop, but it has changed significantly since the last time I really tried to use it. Although my favorite image editor that I spent alot of time with in the past was Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, so it is a steep jump to other editing programs. I use paint alot for quick and dirty edits eg. cropping.

Those pictures are from .jpg raws, the color picker was an "effect" mode on the camera. The next time I'm in downtown Houston, I plan to try the miniature mode as an example. Just having fun, and familiarizing myself with the usage of the camera, its menu and navigation system, etc. All the pictures taken were done freehand (havn't attached it to a tripod yet, but I plan on it soon for some exerimenting in low light situations), and pretty much in a simple "point and shoot" mode. I have some other pictures where I played around with depth of field, but I don't think my car keys, or a starbucks cup are super interesting.

Thank you for the congratulation.

[Ralphie]

Congrats on the baby brother.

Ya id have to agree with Tn....

in camera will definitely hold ya back.

As far as the selective color, I can count on one hand the times I have been taken back by selective coloring. To me, the picture has to call for it. Most do not.

I do see what you were going for with that one, bringing the berries to life and subduing the foliage.


Also be careful with DOF....

In some of the first pictures, you can see where things are blurry that don't necessarily need to be, unless that was what you were aiming for.

It can be artsy, but If you don't get used to using it and how to work with it, when you do portraits later down the road you could end up having some people in focus and others not etc.

I used to have flickr but you can only have one if you have a yahoo address and I didn't want an empty yahoo address floating around.

Once it got hacked and spam was sent out, I closed my account.

I use PB and It works for me because I do 100% of my editing in Lightroom.....and then just use PB for storage.....the tools it does have work good and they are easy to use so that is why I have stayed.

Keep up the good work, its all about practice.

I went to Rhode Island this weekend so Ill be posting a few from that trip in the photography forum shortly.

[cloudasc]

Congrats on the baby brother.

Ya id have to agree with Tn....

in camera will definitely hold ya back.

As far as the selective color, I can count on one hand the times I have been taken back by selective coloring. To me, the picture has to call for it. Most do not.

I do see what you were going for with that one, bringing the berries to life and subduing the foliage.


Also be careful with DOF....

In some of the first pictures, you can see where things are blurry that don't necessarily need to be, unless that was what you were aiming for.

It can be artsy, but If you don't get used to using it and how to work with it, when you do portraits later down the road you could end up having some people in focus and others not etc.

I used to have flickr but you can only have one if you have a yahoo address and I didn't want an empty yahoo address floating around.

Once it got hacked and spam was sent out, I closed my account.

I use PB and It works for me because I do 100% of my editing in Lightroom.....and then just use PB for storage.....the tools it does have work good and they are easy to use so that is why I have stayed.

Keep up the good work, its all about practice.

I went to Rhode Island this weekend so Ill be posting a few from that trip in the photography forum shortly.

Thank you for congratulations!

The picture with the orange beef being blurry is due to the lense choice and how close the camera was to it. I have only had access to point and shoot type camera's like those made by Olympus. So it is a learning process, I now know the limits of my 35mm lense, and how distance from the subject effects the DOF. As for the sushi, the DOF is really narrow, I think I chose the wrong image to upload... I should have posted this one:

[ExplodingCake]

The only bad about the D5100 is that it does not have a built-in focus motor.


PS: Get yourself a flickr account. Quality is not reduced unlike photobucket.