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I have a Nikon D50 with 18-55mm lens.
Which lens would you recomend?

I was thinking an 18-200mm or would I be better with using what I have got + a 55-200mm?

Also what macro lens?
And what else should I look at?

Someone advise me on lens to buy please.
I have the cash and wanting to get into photography myself
 
I tend to get the best shots when my snake is posing ON something such as a toy or tree.

That sounds like a great idea. However, how do you convince them to stay still. My jungle will never sit still for a photo when out of his house and has developed too much interest in the camera itself and keeps getting too close to the lense! Any ideas for getting him to stay still would be much appreciate, he is so hard to get a good picture of.
 
If you say so. Attachment was taken at f32

Not saying that you shouldnt but you would get the same depth of field at roughly 22, but hey whatever takes your fancy. Great shot btw
 
Someone advise me on lens to buy please.
I have the cash and wanting to get into photography myself

Tamron 90mm F2.8 macro is 'good enough' for the most part. Nikkor 105mm F2.8 VR ED is better, but double the price. Some actually claim the Tamron is better. I own the Tamron, and I've used the Nikkor -- had I the money, I would have bought the Nikkor.

Can't really advise you on tele zooms, as I rarely use them. The good ones (e.g. 70 - 200mm VR ED) cost a fortune, and I can't afford them. The bad ones are just that -- really, really bad usually (and accordingly cheap).
 
Ok guys here's my next dilemma...
Equipment:
Canon 450D with a 100mm f2.8 macro lens

I'm using full manuel settings, 1/125 shutter speed, f11, 100 ISO, with flash.... Right, at nighttime I'm getting awesome shots with great depth of field... however, in broad sunlight, the images are appearing dark and not that great... why is this?
 
bump up the iso or drop the apature to let more light in

Your iso can on the 450D can probably shoot great on 640 with little noise, try somewhere in between
 
Ok cool. But I was just curious as to why this was happening in high light conditions when with that same settings at night I'm getting quality shots?
 
Because your using the flash and its quickly exposing everything into the image as soon as the shutter is released, during the day the sensor is picking up all the available light bouncing of everything around you and because its not being illuminated with a hot flash it needs either a slower shutter speed, larger apature or a higher iso
 
Wikid, that's what I was thinking but wanted to confirm it. Cheers again method
 
Do you guys shoot in "RAW" format? Also when converting from raw do you go to tiff or jpg?
I have been using tiff and seems alot better than jpg.
 
well I dont own the flashest camera nor do I take the flashest pictures but I did get lucky with this ...
DSCF1622.jpg

DSCF1623.jpg
 
Always shoot in RAW if its available to you. If you think of the Raw file as a digital negative you will start to see the benefits. If Raw isn't available then Tiff is the next best format to use. The more information you can get in your digital file the better. Raw files capture all the information you think you get when you take a pic. Tiffs and jpegs compress all of the information into a neat little package, which means that you will lose valuable data and this cannot be retrieved. Which is great for happy snaps but not so great if you want a high quality image with maximum enlargement capabilities.

Photoshop is another issue altogether and has nothing to do with which file format you are using.
 
Do you guys shoot in "RAW" format? Also when converting from raw do you go to tiff or jpg?
I have been using tiff and seems alot better than jpg.

RAW for sure. As rebeccalg pointed out, RAW gives you that little bit extra, and as long as you know how to tweak it, you'll be better off using it.

A local lab (pro lab) once demonstrated to me that there's no visible difference in prints resulting from the use of high-quality JPEGs compared to lossless formats. As such, when I order prints, I give them high-quality JPEGs.

These days I try and optimise the image for a given print size and save it as a high-quality JPEG for printing purposes. I always keep the RAW in case I need to modify it for prints of a different size though.

Tiffs and jpegs compress all of the information into a neat little package, which means that you will lose valuable data and this cannot be retrieved.

The TIFF format can use any number of compression algorithms (or indeed none at all!), only some of which are lossy; others are lossless, unlike JPEG compression.
 
Ok guys here's my next dilemma...
Equipment:
Canon 450D with a 100mm f2.8 macro lens

I'm using full manuel settings, 1/125 shutter speed, f11, 100 ISO, with flash.... Right, at nighttime I'm getting awesome shots with great depth of field... however, in broad sunlight, the images are appearing dark and not that great... why is this?

To get nice exposure for macro photography even during the day leave the flash on. Use the TTL (through the lens metering) on your camera to give you the exposure for the sunlight (whateva it is) i.e. 1/125 at f11. I don't know what flash you use but if you have an external flash unit set the power of this to be 2 exposures higher than the TTL meterring, in this example 1/125 at f16 or f 22 then take the photo at those settings if you want depth or change the shutter speed instead. You will find that the sunlight exposure which is f11 will give you the shadow detail and the flash will be your main light source. It stops getting dark shadows without details on your subject and because the flash is only set at 2 exposures higher and the camera exposing the highlights at that setting it wil give you a perfect zone system setting for your shadows 2 exposures down from zone 5 with the highlights being the reflective surface of your subject.
 
To get nice exposure for macro photography even during the day leave the flash on. Use the TTL (through the lens metering) on your camera to give you the exposure for the sunlight (whateva it is) i.e. 1/125 at f11. I don't know what flash you use but if you have an external flash unit set the power of this to be 2 exposures higher than the TTL meterring, in this example 1/125 at f16 or f 22 then take the photo at those settings if you want depth or change the shutter speed instead. You will find that the sunlight exposure which is f11 will give you the shadow detail and the flash will be your main light source. It stops getting dark shadows without details on your subject and because the flash is only set at 2 exposures higher and the camera exposing the highlights at that setting it wil give you a perfect zone system setting for your shadows 2 exposures down from zone 5 with the highlights being the reflective surface of your subject.

I'm just using the standard flash on the camera, but it seems that when I use the TTL on the camera I end up loosing quite a bit of depth of field or I have to drop the shutter speed below 1/125 to get a properly exposed photo.
Just in terms of the flash issue that you've discussed, are you saying that if my TTL metering is on -1 then set my external flash (if i had one) to +1?? Oh, I can also change the built-in flash exposure on my camera. Should I also change it to +1 (in the TTL of -1 situation)??
 
I'm just using the standard flash on the camera, but it seems that when I use the TTL on the camera I end up loosing quite a bit of depth of field or I have to drop the shutter speed below 1/125 to get a properly exposed photo.
Just in terms of the flash issue that you've discussed, are you saying that if my TTL metering is on -1 then set my external flash (if i had one) to +1?? Oh, I can also change the built-in flash exposure on my camera. Should I also change it to +1 (in the TTL of -1 situation)??

On full manual if you use the TTL it should still say what apeture and shutter speed is on the internal screen, make sure you don't drop the shutter speed below 1/125 as most on camera flash will not sync below that shutter speed i.e if the shutter speed is at 1/90 then the shutter will be too slow to catch the flash. If the shutter speed is below 1/125 then you will need to open the aperture as this is your base exposure. Alternatively you could put the on camera flash on a slow setting which means it should flash or light up for a bit longer again still be mindfull of the flash sync at 1/125. Now use the TTL to meter what you want to be shadows as you could set your TTL to spot metering, point the camera and focus it on what you want to be a shadow, there should be a dot that appears in the middle of the frame when you do this with your camera or an equivelant, check your manual on how to do this. When you get the base exposure you want, pop the flash up and move the apeture to the setting you want to get the depth, but remember there's a limit to the power of the on camera flash again check the manual. If you close the apeture down 2 stops the TTL on your camera should correct the flash power any more than two and you will get black shadows with no detail. This will only work if you have enough ambient light as the shadows i.e an external source like a lamp or the sun. All your doing is using the ambient light to fill the shadow and your flash as the main source. Remenber the camera has to be on full manual to do this as any apeture priority or shutter priority setting will overide all the metering through the TTL. Give it a go let me know how it goes, it might take a couple of goes as TTL can be a bit unrealiable sometimes as you can't be too sure what it's really metering so use the spot metering setting if your camera has one. Once you get to know how the on camera flash behaves life should be a lot better.
 
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