Photography question

i have a few questions. first i am a novice at photography, as well as cameras. i have been working with an 8mp camera phone which has done me well so far. i guess my main question concerns choosing the right camera. as you know im not experienced or well knowledged, so a thousand dollar camera seems unnecessary, unless i had a **** load of money. lol.

id say my budget is about 5 maybe 6 hundred. id like to buy something that i wont have to replace, and that will be well worth my time. allowing me to capture beautiful images and HDR capable.

As well, id really like to get into long exposures. not sure what you call it, but when you take quite a few pictures of the night sky and then mesh them into one so the stars almost stream across the sky, or lights thru traffic.

i may be getting ahead of myself, haha, but i would like my first camera to meet my basic needs with my low budget if possible. also can i get a decent camera that could capture the stars at night?

thanks in advance

a few i have done, still learning to edit btw

those are really very intensely cool. Jmo

thank you! there are still things i need to work on of course, but i appreciate the positive feedback.

I'd suggest you buy into a good brand DSLR like Nikon or canon, and go for a full frame sensor.

somthing like a Nikon d700 full frame sensor and tough as nails. and look at second hand bodies, and invest in good lenses as you progress.

bodies soon become outdated and loose value, where as the lenses will always carry over to updated bodies.

As for the stars question ... I never delivered on my astrophoto ambitions. But if you can keep the shutter open 1 minute or longer, and have some way of mounting a long lens or eyepiece-projecting from a telescope, you should be on your way!

thanks greenwhilley. any idea on the price? i was thinking the same thing about bodies becoming outdated, although i was thinking that the cameras now are so absurd that the quality would be decent enough. nikon has the nikkor lenses which i think their are 37, and im sure cannon has a shitload. and im confused about going with pixels as for resolution. ive been checking amazon, rebel ti3, nikon 3200? i dont know hahaha. and i figure the lense that it comes with would be good enough for a novice at the moment right?

as for the telescope, ive seen a few photos where they do 200 shots over a 4 hour period and get a tracer like effect of the stars moving, i thinking just really slow shutter as well as a tripod? maybe im wrong.

It really depends on the condition, I could pick one up for around $300 in Australia, it may even be labeled different from where you are. But the lenses do get expensive.

i wouldn't go by pixels/res, high mp's on a small sensor just gives you a lot of noise/grain in low light.
its way more about the sensor size, lagre mp's are good on large sensors, but on small sensors its more about marketing and beating the competitors numbers.

if you want somthing that's compact, the smaller cameras are the way to go, but if you want to get serious and have full manual controls, you will soon kick yourself for not buying into a full frame camera.

damn ok im gonna resort to your last message again . the d700 around 3300 american. my currency is 5-600 hundred lol. maybe the nikon 3200? just looking for opinions as to what would suit my needs. thanks a lot dude.

Amazon has a used Canon 5D 12.8MP (full-frame sensor; excellent hard-and software. I bought one new for way too much money 5 years ago.) for about $600. I'd think in such a direction ...

3 gs for those now lol. amazon is looking like the canon rebel t3i 18mp, or nikon 3200 24 mp. any insight would be nice. until then more research. youre right 600 used! sweet, back to the lab!

For what you're talking about you really want a full frame manual camera. While there are new bodies with new features coming out all the time DSLRs have been taking professional quality images for quite some time. I have a Canon EOS 50D that I got in 2009 that takes fantastic pictures and I would rather put money towards new glass than a new body. I actually chose to get it over a 5D at the time because it can shoot slightly faster and could still take images that could be printed at 16x20 after some cropping. And it was like a 1/3 the price and still a full frame full manual control camera.
For doing space shots there are adapters for SLR cameras and telescopes that are pretty cheap as these things go. Then just set up the tripod. If you want to do like 100 1 minute exposures you're going to want to set up a computer to control everything.

My main career is a professional photographer and here is my advice.

- You are on the right path with acknowledging that the camera is not the most important tool, you are.
- For $500-600 just starting out, look at getting a camera body from a couple a years ago(like a Canon T2i), as these are still amazing cameras and the new models have not changed that much.
- If you are going to spend big, buy good glass(lenses). There are many lens review sites out there, they will tell you the pros and cons of each lens.(Nifty fifty is a great start)
- Like painting, sculpting or any other "art", practice is the only way to improve. Try the "M" or manual mode on your camera body and try new things(take a photo laying on the ground, stand on something tall and shoot down, get an angle you dont normally see). Also the amount of free content to learn photography on the internet is sometimes mind blowing.
- If you want to get really serious about it, call a few local event photographers and ask them if you can second shoot with them for free. Some will say no, but eventually you will find one that will let you come for the day.

If you have anymore questions feel free to hit me up

canon
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-T2i-Processor-3-0-inch-18-55mm/dp/B0035FZJHQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381286822&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+t2i

nikon
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-Digital-18-55mm-3-5-5-6-NIKKOR/dp/B007VGGFZU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381286862&sr=8-1&keywords=nikon+3200

comparisons
http://snapsort.com/compare/Canon_EOS_Rebel_T2i-vs-Nikon-D3200
http://www.2cameraguys.com/compare-cameras.cfm?add=6&add=190

oh and how important is auto bracketing exposure? apparently the nikon does not have this feature. im thinking one or the either, so im still researching lol

Ballsonrawls said:

oh and how important is auto bracketing exposure? apparently the nikon does not have this feature. im thinking one or the either, so im still researching lol

Click to expand...

Autobracketing is a feature of some more advanced cameras, whether film or digital cameras, particularly single-lens reflex cameras, where the camera will take several successive shots (often three) with slightly different settings. Two modes are used: The images are automatically combined, for example Automatic Exposure Bracketing into one High dynamic range image, or the best-looking separately stored pictures can be picked later from the batch. When the photographer achieves the same result by changing the camera settings between each shot, this is simply called bracketing.



I never used it in my past...


digital photography is all about the glass and what you can do with Photoshop IMO... and Point and shoot camera may what you want.. however I'd say go and try the one you want to buy before you get it.. most Point and shoot cameras have such a bad shutter delay I wont ever use one..

Currently own the rebel t3i myself have used canons for over 15 years and good glass is worth the price..


fwiw you can own Photoshop free here legally

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

Adobe has released this legacy version of the ever popular Photoshop as freeware. Download and enjoy.

Windows Serial number: 1045-1412-5685-1654-6343-1431
Mac OS X Serial number: 1045-0410-5403-3188-5429-0639


once you get that you can use filters like

http://www.optikvervelabs.com/virtualPhotographer.asp

sweet thank you. yeah im hoping there is a best buy around here. im kinda in in the boonies so id be going through amazon. ive been working with photoshop light room and a few hdr programs. havent messed with the actual photoshop yet. the reason i asked about the bracketing was for the HDR. taking over exposed pictures and underexposed and puting them together. but i guess i could do that manually.
im wondering which camera will have less noise.

i got my cannon rebel t3i about 2 years ago im sure its cheaper now but i paid about 600$ for itView attachment 2851342View attachment 2851343

oh i like showing this one off cause its neato

I like the duck.