Accessories + Advice for amateur photographer with Nikon D3200

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lokhor

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#116230 22-Apr-2013 19:18

Hi all,

I recently bought a Nikon D3200 DSLR, it's my first 'real' camera.

I am slowly learning the basics of photography but wanted to know what sort of accessories might help and where the best places to get them are.

I was thinking of getting a tripod from Noel Leeming as I have some vouchers from there but unsure if they are any good.

I also was thinking of getting a flash that sits on top of the camera but unsure what to get and don't understand all the jargon when looking for flashes on eBay.

I have found that the 18-55mm lens that comes with the camera is ok for portrait shots and a bit of macro photography but not very good for anything long distance. To remedy this I was thinking of getting the Nikon Nikkor 55-200mm lens as it seems to sell for a little over $200. Can anyone else recommend this?

Suggestions for any books on learning photography that are worth purchasing would also be welcome.

Cheers,

Nick

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

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#803881 22-Apr-2013 19:33

www.digitalcameraworld.com has some quite useful articles on taking photos.

timmmay

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#803900 22-Apr-2013 20:14

I don't think a 55-200 lens or accessories will help you much. If something's too far away just stand closer. The only advantage you get is a narrower depth of field for portraits, but cheap zoom lenses on a crop body you won't get really narrow DOF.

You'd be better off with a Nikon 50mm F1.8 G prime lens. They're not too expensive. Add a Youngnou flash, from ebay or trademe - you need ettl/ittl/some kind of ttl but you don't need the most powerful one. Just make sure the flash head can rotate 180 degrees in each direction - sometimes bouncing the flash over your shoulder is handy.

The great thing about digital photography is you can learn by doing. I went from n00b to professional in a couple of (very intensive) years. I did an 8 week/2h per week evening course that taught me the basics that was invaluable, but no other training until I passed my qualifications.

deadlyllama

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#803910 22-Apr-2013 20:40

I learnt with a succession of gradually less ancient film cameras so the books I read are not so likely to be useful.

There are two parts to good photography: technical mastery of your equipment, and actually taking decent photos -- framing, composition, use of light, ...

The best things about digital is the immediacy of the results and the cheapness of taking another shot. You can see if you've got something wrong without waiting for the prints to come back, and you can take heaps of photos and throw out the bad ones, something amateurs couldn't afford with film (well I couldn't, anyway).

I broke my proper tripod, but never used it anyway. Too much of a pain to carry. I have a tiny travel tripod which gets perched on top of cars and fenceposts and the like. I have two lenses for my DSLR, the kit lens and a cheap 55-200mm which is great for shots with lots of telephoto compression (objects in the distance not much smaller than objects close by) and narrow depth of field (nice blurry backgrounds).

A hotshoe flash was good when I had a camera without an integrated flash, but you don't need one if your camera has one built in. The main advantage is the ability to increase the angle between the lens, subject and flash (think of it like a triangle). A flash too close to the lens makes the lighting look awful, and makes red-eye worse. As timmmay says, being able to bounce the flash off things helps here too.

It's great that you want to take the time to learn photography. That's way more important that the gear you buy.

timmmay

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#803917 22-Apr-2013 20:52

"Understanding exposure" is meant to be a good book.

Forget the tripod, I have one but I don't remember the last time I used it. I use light stands to hold off camera flashes quite often, but I use people for that too - aka the voice activated light stand.

alasta

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#803957 22-Apr-2013 21:39

timmmay: You'd be better off with a Nikon 50mm F1.8 G prime lens. They're not too expensive. Add a Youngnou flash, from ebay or trademe - you need ettl/ittl/some kind of ttl but you don't need the most powerful one. Just make sure the flash head can rotate 180 degrees in each direction - sometimes bouncing the flash over your shoulder is handy.

That would be 75mm equivalent on a DX body, and I wouldn't have thought that would be particularly useful since it's too long for general purpose but not quite long enough for portrait or telephoto shots.

I have the 35mm f/1.8 DX lens and I find that really useful, but I think the OP would be best to get a bit more experience and then decide for himself what he needs. The purpose of lenses and accessories is to customise to your own individual requirements.

dickytim

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#804037 23-Apr-2013 07:10

sorry to hi-jack the thread but I am interested in what people think of hot shoe flashes?

I used to take a heap of photo's at dressage events that were held at an indoor event, they never came out well as the lighting was poor and only provided by clear corrogated sheets in the roof of the building, this meant that is went light/dark/light/dark.

This equestrian centre closed down so I would not have a need for indoor photography.

In actual fact I very rarely use even the inbuilt flash.

Who, for day to day photography regularly uses a flash? Do you use the built in one or an external one?

Batman

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#804040 23-Apr-2013 07:22

maybe you have a lot of money - that's fine but i suggest go in this order (look - it's only a suggestion)

1) learn about exposure = combination of aperture shutter speed and iso. learn about aperture, shutter speed. why/when to shoot in aperture priority. why/when to shoot in shutter speed priority. learn why just after sunrise is the best time to take shots, and why shots are horrible in bright daylight. maybe look into HDR after mastering 2 and 3.

2) learn composition: some shots are just wrong - the horizon is not horizontal for example (well i'm ocd. some pros can get away with it). the rule of thirds. where to focus. where to blur out. point of view. taking extra effort/steps to get to the right place for better composition (eg climb up a tree etc). for this i suggest you get your 50mm 1.8 prime lens but let me tell you it's better to get a 30mm prime but hey i dont know how much more it'll cost you!

3) learn digital editing and shooting in raw. learn about white balance.

that's as far as i've got ... i know i've got more to learn but after years i've yet to master number 2 and my number 3 i have photoshop and i don't know how to create magazine covers. but i think i have mastered 1

practice practice practice
courses
groups
who knows you might find love in the process lol

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Batman

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#804042 23-Apr-2013 07:23

forgot. learn about iso in (1)

you can see i don't have flash anywhere because i dont use flash (lol - i dont know how and i dont have a unit - does that explain it lol)

timmmay

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#804048 23-Apr-2013 07:39

alasta: That would be 75mm equivalent on a DX body, and I wouldn't have thought that would be particularly useful since it's too long for general purpose but not quite long enough for portrait or telephoto shots.

I have the 35mm f/1.8 DX lens and I find that really useful, but I think the OP would be best to get a bit more experience and then decide for himself what he needs. The purpose of lenses and accessories is to customise to your own individual requirements.

I agree, mostly. I find 50mm quite handy for portraits, and the lens is cheap, which is the main reason I recommended it. 35mm is probably better for general purpose, but as you know wider lenses have more apparent depth of field. With the 50mm you can play more easily with it, and learn more.

Professionally I use mostly zooms, the 50 f1.8 is my only prime, though I'm considering adding an 85 1.4/1.2 for next year.

dickytim: sorry to hi-jack the thread but I am interested in what people think of hot shoe flashes?

I used to take a heap of photo's at dressage events that were held at an indoor event, they never came out well as the lighting was poor and only provided by clear corrogated sheets in the roof of the building, this meant that is went light/dark/light/dark.

This equestrian centre closed down so I would not have a need for indoor photography.

In actual fact I very rarely use even the inbuilt flash.

Who, for day to day photography regularly uses a flash? Do you use the built in one or an external one?

That depends, do you want to alter the amount of light, or change the light quality? For big events like that you may need studio flashes and radio triggers.

Photography is much easier with a flash. You can use it direct for fill, you can bounce it as main (or fill), it gives you a lot more options. Once you get the flash off your camera with a radio trigger you get even more options. "Natural light photographer" is usually another way of saying "I don't own or can't use a flash effectively", though about 1% are really good at spotting great natural light.

So the answer is it depends on what you want to do, when, and where.

Batman

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#804255 23-Apr-2013 12:44

timmmay: , but as you know wider lenses have more apparent depth of field..

i thnk you mean less (shallower) depth of field ;p but yeah we get what you mean ... just trying to sound photo-ey

timmmay

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#804265 23-Apr-2013 12:46

joker97:
timmmay: , but as you know wider lenses have more apparent depth of field..

i thnk you mean less (shallower) depth of field ;p but yeah we get what you mean ... just trying to sound photo-ey

No, I do mean wider lenses have more depth of field. The longer the lens the less the apparent depth of field. 16mm F4 has a huge DOF, 200mm F4 has a narrow DOF.

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#804268 23-Apr-2013 12:48

you right ... *blush*

when i read you post i was thinking larger aperture shallower DOF

apologies

timmmay

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#804271 23-Apr-2013 12:52

No worries.

NZtechfreak

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#804298 23-Apr-2013 13:30

dickytim: sorry to hi-jack the thread but I am interested in what people think of hot shoe flashes?

I used to take a heap of photo's at dressage events that were held at an indoor event, they never came out well as the lighting was poor and only provided by clear corrogated sheets in the roof of the building, this meant that is went light/dark/light/dark.

This equestrian centre closed down so I would not have a need for indoor photography.

In actual fact I very rarely use even the inbuilt flash.

Who, for day to day photography regularly uses a flash? Do you use the built in one or an external one?

I rarely use my flash, prefer to use aperture, exposure and film speed to compensate.

With something like you are describing where you'd want to freeze the action I'd go for a fast shutter speed and compensate with high ISOs. Depends a bit on what the usable ISO range is for your camera as to how doable that is, mine is very good to 3200, usable at 6400, and for black and white shots still useful at 12800 for some kinds of shots (reason I say black and white is that luminance noise is less distracting that chroma noise). Flash won't be much good even were you to use it in that scenario since its a big wide-open scene and the flash won't be powerful enough to illuminate it.

In relation to the OP:

Definitely getting to know the features is a solid place to start. Use the semi-manual modes like Aperture priority, shutter priority and so forth to really get a feel for what each of these contributes and the sort of scenarios where you might use them.

Regarding tripod: depends what kind of shooter you are, I use mine a fair amount since I like to muck about with HDR/long exposures/video and so forth, but it is certainly far from mandatory. That said, you can pick up a perfectly serviceable one for like $25, so it isn't the kind of outlay you're making on lenses.

Lenses: really depends on what you see yourself shooting most of the time. At present I have two lenses, my "all purpose" one is a very high quality lens with a 24-70mm equivalent FOV/focal range and a constant 2.8 aperture throughout (useful for video), and I have a super large aperture prime lens because I want to shoot lots of video in quite low light (which I'm considering changing for another for a variety of reasons, but that's another story).

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

timmmay

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#804395 23-Apr-2013 16:24

Ambient light isn't some magical light that should always be used. I can improve almost every image with flash, a little or a lot, but I have quite a bit of knowledge and experience. I'm comfortable at ISO6400 but flash lets you highlight what's important in an image.

For context, I'm a wedding photographer. Professional.

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