Best products from r/itookapicture

Ah yes, the GAS beginnings! And in case you want to spend more money...

The nifty fifty is great, and almost too cheap not to have lying around. But on a crop sensor like the T5i it's a touch long as a general purpose lens, 80ish mm equivalent. You might find it a bit limiting, and it becomes extremely difficult to use indoors. Great for portraits though.

I highly recommend this prime for your rebel - it's also absurdly cheap. Bonus, it makes your camera absolutely teeny. Great for street photography. Around 35mm equivalent, a classic focal length for a good reason. I wish I had one, but my crop sensor Canon doesn't get a lot of use these days, and I have the 35mm f2 for the 5D.

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-S-24mm-2-8-Lens/dp/B00NI3BZ5K

Also, if you want a cheap fast zoom (is such a thing possible?) I love my Tamron 28-75. It's fantastic on a full frame (honestly, it hardly ever comes off my camera, my primes have been gathering dust), and is perfectly usable on a crop sensor. Around $200 used.

https://www.amazon.com/Tamron-28-75mm-Aspherical-Canon-Digital/dp/B0000A1G05

Some random snaps from the last time I had the 40D out with it:

http://i.imgur.com/LHaTPAU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MQ6DSzF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/JdQEgS4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Bp5ADly.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8ysMYQy.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jj7xNLI.jpg

I'm only about 1.5 years into DSLR photography, but I'm a meteorologist, so storm chasing and weather photography is most of what I do. It's all dependent on your camera and what time of day it is. If it's day time, you're going to need a good neutral density filter, narrow aperture, and low ISO. Then just adjust your shutter speed as needed so you don't get overexposed. This will be most dependent on the ND filter you get. Hoya makes a good one.

For night time, it really depends on the frequency of your strikes and how fast your camera can write to your card. In my experience, I find that I would rather take more shots at 8-10 seconds than 30 second exposures because my camera takes longer to write that 30 second exposure to the card before it's ready to take another picture. That time it's writing to the card is time wasted where a strike could be happening that I'm missing. You be the judge...if you have a ton of lightning, you may be okay with that. But then again, if you have a ton of lightning, you also may have too much light to do a 30 second exposure.

Settings wise, in my experience at night, F/8 - F/11...ISO of 100 and an exposure of about 10 seconds is usually what I start with and go from there. The more frequent the strikes, the more "exposed" your shot is going to be so you'll have to tweak things while you're out there. Your shot may not look right until a strike lights up the sky. Get yourself a remote trigger and just keep firing over and over again so you don't have any time where you're not shooting.

If I can recommend a good radar app, get RadarScope. It is the best radar app for iOS/Android out there. Yes, it is $10, but I use this while storm chasing as radar in my vehicle. Highly recommend it. It doesn't have lightning data in it, but it will at least tell you if you can stay outside long enough to keep dry. It's the cadillac of radar apps. Of course there are plenty of free alternatives that will do you just fine as well.

Of course, all of this is my camera (a Nikon) and my experience. Yours may vary entirely. I see this shot was F/4, 30 seconds and ISO 100. I think I have a lot more light pollution than you do. :)

Honestly, they're more likely to check out driving to/from the climb than from climbing itself.

When properly trained and performed, climbing is extremely safe (minimally dangerous?) and encourages good habits (problem solving, improvisation, calm demeanor) and provides inexpensive leisure that contributes to physical fitness and health.

Let me suggest, however, some required reading:

• First
  
  
• Second
  
  
• Third
  
  
• Fourth
  
  
• Fifth
  
  
• If looking to broaden horizons beyond just rock climbing, This is a good start. There are many good texts, particularly those published by The Mountaineers Books that go in depth on Ice Climbing, Snowfield and Glacier travel, and Alpine Climbing techniques.
  
  
  Once familiar with the theory and application of these texts, mentorship and apprenticeship in the field by competent parties is recommended. Reading and doing are different skills.

My finacee is very into alternative home designs. We've looked at monolithic domes and other concrete designs, but never tried it. That requires heavier equipment than we have, and more people. Our next project will be building some Vardo-style gypsy wagons. (I think)

We have done some jobs commercially; we recently finished doing 27 countertops and 9 hearths for a resort in Millinocket, Maine that added 9 cabins. Mostly for ourselves and friends, though. We are considering making it into a proper business, but I've got to say, it kills my frickin' back. (Two people moving 400-450lb slabs for weeks. Ug. My girlfriend never complains, though. I am a baby.)

The good news is that pouring your own countertops is very inexpensive. The bad news is that it is labor intensive. You can cast in-place or elsewhere. Casting elsewhere allows more freedom to make a mess and wet polish outside or someplace with a drain. (You can polish with sponge diamond pads, by hand.) Casting in-place means no heavy lifting, just more troweling to knock the aggregate down and smooth the surface.

As I said elsewhere, the best thing you could do would be to get Fu-Tung Cheng's book and/or DVD. He knows his stuff and he's extremely well organized and lucid. He sells bits like drain and sink knock-outs, but we make everything ourselves out of foam insulation and packing tape. (Occasionally aluminum flashing & tape.) Works like a charm.

You should pay attention to the load bearing capabilities of your kitchen floor. If it's OK that your kitchen winds up in your basement, don't worry about it. Often it's enough to simply double up the floor joists.

You might want to consider the rule of thirds when taking photos. In this case the most noticeable part of the image appears to be the cat's leg, which is pretty much centered. Ideally you would like to have something of interest in other areas of the photo so that the viewer's eye is drawn away from the center.

If you enjoy taking photos then pick-up a beginner's book on photography, preferably one with a lot of photos you can examine and learn from. I've recommended Digital Art Photography For Dummies to a few friends and it seems like a good place to start, though you could also just peruse the shelves of your favorite bookstore for something which appeals to you.

(I've been meaning to add this as a tutorial on my blog but I've never gotten around to it. Hopefully, this will give me a start and the energy to follow through with it.)

1. Acquire jumping jacks, a big wooden clamp, a pane of glass and another wooden clamp (if you fear for your lens)
   
   
2. Find the hole in the side of the jumping jack. This is where the fire will shoot from.
   
   
3. Secure the jumping jack in the wooden clamp with the hole pointing across the field of view (not toward the camera!)
   
   
4. Frame up the shot as desired. (I wanted the flames shooting into the corners.) The fire will be bright, so set your camera to handle it in a way that will give you a long shutter speed even with the bright light so you can catch the spark trails. (I used a 105mm and cranked down the f-stop to 40, but if you have an ND filter that may be the way to go.) I also hung a black cloth across some light stands behind the jumping jack and waited until dusk so I could get a solid black background.
   
   4a) Put the protective pane of glass in between the fire and the camera. It may cause some glow and reflection, but it beats burning the coating off of your glass. After about 15 successful burns I was convinced enough to remove the glass for a few shots.
   
   
5. Light the fuse and be ready with the remote. Depending on your shutter speed, you may have a narrow window to work with. I waited until the moment the fuse burned down into the body to open the shutter.
   
   
6. Check out the results. Reload and repeat until happy.
   

I think the second photo is better than the first. The first photo's composition is a bit off to me. The subject takes up so little in the frame, she almost seems to be a distraction or an after thought in comparison to the rest of the photo.

I think Striker's crop is probably the best one I've seen here and what I would do if I were to make any adjustments. The color enhancement is good, too.

In the second photo, I think you could probably crop the left side and top away. One thing a lot of people do when they start taking portraits is leave a ton of room at the top of the photo. To me, all that area above her head is distracting, as well as the red junk under the pier to her left. You don't want your eye to wander that much, especially when it doesn't come back to the subject. You don't always have to crop the top out of the photo, but I think it would help in this case.

David Ziser has a lot of cool composition tips in his blog Digital Pro Talk as well as his book, Captured by the Light. He's mainly a wedding photographer, but a lot of what he discusses in his blog and book are applicable to any portrait type photography.

If you're looking for software, I would recommend Photoshop or Lightroom. Personally, I prefer Photoshop because it has more options just in case you need them. You get a lot wider range of actions options if you ever go that way, too.

I'd also recommend checking out books or videos on Adobe Camera RAW. I never realized how powerful that software is until I watched Scott Kelby's video series on it on his online training.

You could also check out Totally Rad Actions. I have the first batch and plan to buy the second at some point. I'm also a huge fan of Alien Skin's Exposure 3 program.

I'd say get a used DSLR for a few hundred and practice, practice, practice. Something like a Canon 20D. You can take good pictures with cheap cameras but the DSLR makes changing settings (aperture, shutter, etc) a lot easier. And they look cool too.

To get better: read photography blogs, find photos that you like, think about why you like them, read your camera's manual, learn all the settings and buttons, bring your camera everywhere, get a Flickr account and post to it, don't be scared to look silly while shooting, ask questions about your photos at r/photography, accept constructive criticism, and the most important thing... KEEP SHOOTING!!!

The trick here is to use the right shutter speed. I usually use anywhere from 1/4 to 1 full second of exposure depending on the waves. A shorter exposure will let you freeze the action better and the waves will be sharper, more recognizable; a longer exposure time will blur motion to the point that if you use something like 30sec +, it will be all smooth and "cotton candy" like. You will most likely need a neutral density filter to block some of the light, cause even if you use the lowest f stop and ISO, it's still probably gonna be way too bright to use 1/4s exposure.

Another thing to keep in mind is the timing of the waves when you are composing. An incoming wave adds more dynamic to the picture, makes the waves seem more "angry" almost like an explosion; while an outgoing wave like the one I posted here will appear much more peaceful and will give you the fine lines which is great to use as leading lines.

Finally, use burst mode on your camera. Chances are you don't get the position of the waves perfect every time and the composition is off(especially for the incoming waves), so use burst mode and "shoot first, ask later".

Ah I love IFTTT so useful! Thanks for the compliments! The lens I used was this Nikon lens. Its pretty amazing for bokeh, and has a great depth of field!

The "plastic fantastic" actually refers to this lens:

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-50mm-1-8-Camera-Lens/dp/B00007E7JU

The casing is literally plastic. But at about 100 bucks, it is an amazing value.

On a crop sensor like the T3i 50mm. a 50mm f/2 is more like a 80mm f/2 on a full frame sensor. The quick and dirty way of calculating this would be to take the focal length and multiply it by 1.6. In practice all it really means if you have to stand a little further back than if you had a pricey full frame camera. 1.6 meters, instead of 1 meter, for a similar effect.

Overall not a big deal.

As for the grain deal, that was just my person opinion. It is a striking image as it is.

It would be the excellent 50mm 1.8D or the ever slightly more excellent 50mm 1.8G.

The primary difference is that the "D" version is older and lacks a focus motor, so it only auto-focuses on Nikon bodies that already have a focus motor built in. The "G" version includes the focus motor in the lens. There are a few other differences as well.

Additionally, there's the 50mm 1.4D and 1.4G, if you want even further abilitiy to defocus backgrounds. (D=no focus motor, G=with focus motor.)

This is beautiful. Did you get that little ice ND10 filter. So cheap!

I have a d5200 and same lens and I looove that little filter. Some of these were from my first day out. (Also love LR and Nik collection)

Thanks! There's a good amount to choose from on Amazon, this is the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004G45GLE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . There are probably cheaper ones that do the exact same thing.

I've seen them sold for up to $100 some places... Happy shooting!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004G45GLE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

You might have. Seems like Darek Grabus did it first. I believe it's called "Architectural Cutlery". You can even buy a copy of it on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Acrylic-Decor-36X49-Untitled-Grabus/dp/B01IVRKBW0

I own this lens and am thinking about getting a portrait lens to photograph my brother's wedding (I'm just taking pictures for fun).

Would you recommend not getting this lens here and just sticking to the macro for portraits? If so, why?

Yep, a B+W 0.9 ND Filter

It's just an acrylic ball. Got if off Amazon for about $15
Edit: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004G45GLE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00

Nope, this is a single 30 second exposure using a 10 stop ND Filter at f18 and 18mm on the Nikon Kit lens for my D90. The clouds must not have been moving fast enough to get any serious motion blur for the 30 seconds the shutter was open. Thanks!