Some photos I took tonight…

Hey Vicky, Awesome pics, composition and colour. Keep it up. You’re already doing great.

Love the pics; thanks for sharing! The bridge shot is one of my favorites too; I tend to favor the color version over its black and white sibling. It looks like you’ve added some vignetting with some other changes as well; very nice! Isn’t it fun to explore a new creative outlet?

One application you could check out is Photoshop Lightroom – I just upgraded from version 1 to 2. It’s available for Mac and PC and is very handy for quickly sorting through and tagging a large batch of photos and quickly making edits and adjustments. If you want to learn about Lightroom (or its distant cousin Photoshop, or some other great apps in the Adobe family) check out the Adobe Video Workshop, it’s chock-full of very helpful (and free) video tutorials:

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

Also, you can download a free 30-day trial of Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop, and other Adobe apps. Here’s a link (you have to create an Adobe.com login, but it’s quick, easy and free):

http://www.adobe.com/go/trylightroom_ap

As to lenses, here are a few in my bag that I’ve been happy with:
– Nikon 50mm 1.8: small, fun, cheap lense with with a pretty large aperture; great for low-light photos (and I just remembered that I’ve been considering selling mine and upgrading to the faster F1.4 or maybe a fixed 35mm for a little wider view with the smaller DX sensor – if you’d like a gently used “thrifty fifty,” let me know)
– Nikon 18-200 DX: great all-purpose lense. I might have mentioned this one here before, but lately this is the one that spends the most time on my camera. It works for most purposes and you don’t have to switch out for other lenses; you’ve got everything from wide-angle to telephoto, all in one.
– Tokina 12-24 F4 DX: Almost as good as the Nikon version of this lense and a lot cheaper. Normally I go for the Nikon version because I find it’s much better in the long run to buy quality. However, this one was recommended to me highly at the local camera shop and I’ve been pleased with it. If you want to play with a wide angle lense, shoot pics in tight spots and get a lot in the frame, etc. – this one gives you some options.
– There are a couple others (zoom 2.8 lenses) I could recommend for good indoor / low light shooting, but they can start to get a little more pricey – and you haven’t mentioned that you plan to shoot a wedding any time soon. If you’re looking to add a lense or two, you’d probably be better served getting some combo of the ones I’ve mentioned above and playing with them a bunch before adding anything else. :o)

Vicky,

Congrats on creating some great images! I agree with Jonathan that the 50mm f/1.8 is a great, inexpensive lens. If there’s one thing that I could go back and do when I first started in photography, it would be to buy just the camera and that lens to start out. Photoshop is great if you can make the investment, but Photoshop Elements 6 is the “little brother program” and costs around $80 and works great. For a free alternative, I really like Picasa. It’s VERY easy to use and you can do quite a lot in it.

One last recommendation – if you decide to create a photo book, I HIGHLY recommend using Blurb (www.blurb.com). They are fantastic and cost about $20 less than Shutterfly or Snapfish for books and the quality is actually better.

Some nice shots Vicky. Whenever I see other people’s recent photos I try and remind myself to a) take more photos and b) put more of the photos I do take on my web site. Last photos on my site are from 2007 now. Hmmm.

I think you’ve made an excellent choice of camera… seeing as I have a D80 too! I use the Nikon 18-200 DX lens most of the time. It’s just so useful to have the massive zoom range all in one lens and gives decent enough quality shots for me.

One other fun lens I have is a Lensbaby:

http://lensbaby.com/

I’ve got an older version, the 2.0 version. It’s a lovely creative tool that produces pictures with only a small part of the image in focus. There are many lovely examples of images taken in this way on the lensbaby web site. The only thing with the Nikon D80 is that you have to put the camera into fully manual mode to work with the lensbaby. You can’t even use the camera’s light meter, so you’re guessing every time you snap a shot.

Of your shots I too like the bridge one. I might chop off a bit of water from the bottom, but that’s just a personal thing. I currently use Photoshop Elements (on a PC) for image editing, ’cause I can’t afford the full version right now. However, I’d be after the full version of Photoshop one day, plus a Mac. I need to start saving…

1. A good lens that is sharp is more important than the megabixel rat race. Invest in a better lense. Clarity and a good apeture are importan. If you can get one that is fast (the ‘f’ number – the smaller the better) you can use shorter exposure speeds with less than ample light.

2. Get a monopod. The little extra bit of stability really helps.

3. Play around with different exposure speeds and see what results you get.

Have fun Vic!

picasaweb.google.com/contactpeterjohn

Besides Photoshop, there’s GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/). It is equivalent to the full version of Photoshop and it’s free. I’ve used it a bit, and it works great for what I know about photo editing. Picasa is also nice for fixing up photos when you want something quick and automatic.

Hey Vicky,

I’m with Jonathan2 on this one – check out GIMP. You can find the Mac-specific versions here: http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

There’s definitely a learning curve on it, but once you mess around with it for a while, I think you’ll find that it’s powerful and will do everything you need.

You can find tutorials here: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ , especially scroll down to “Photo Editing”.

Shalom,

Tristan

vicky, you’re making me miss san diego.

i have to back up the 50mm 1.8 lens recommendation, as well as the 18-200mm VR.

if you’re looking for a lower priced alternative to adobe ps and you’re a mac user, check out pixelmator @ $59.

Download Picasa. They just recently released the version for Mac. I love the fact that it automatically finds pictures on your computer without having to import them like every other mac application. The editing functions are simple but powerful.

Oh yeah – Its FREE!

Hey Vicky! Someone already mentioned this but I used Photoshop Lightroom for my digital photography class last semester and I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoy seeing pictures from your travels!

Sarah

Wow! The first picture is amazing!

What a great discussion! Here’s a little of my opinion on your options for photo programs.

The freebies mentioned above are good options for many people. For graphics/photo professional or people who want to do work semi-professionally, there’s no question – just go for Photoshop and/or Lightroom. However, the amateur category can be further divided. :o) Those who have more extra time than money should go for one of the free options. These programs might take a little more work to master or might not work quite as well for some things, but can do quite a few things pretty well. For those who have a little money to spend and less free time, I’d recommend one of the Adobe products instead.

However, this advice ought to be taken with a grain of salt as I haven’t used either GIMP or Picassa in a year or two and they may have improved greatly in that time.

I love that you love my homeland! Great pics of San Diego… I can’t get enough reminders of home while living in TN! :)

Hi Vicky,
Great pics; and don’t forget: attempting IS awesome.

One thing I always look at is focus and cutting: on what does your eye focus on a photo? It has to do with:
- What is the primary object? what is it you want to tell (the bridge, sky, water, building)? Choose on object and let the other elements enhance that one object. Horizon is very important: I choose to have it at 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 from the bottom.

I took the liberty to cut a photo of yours. See the result.

Result is visible in the link ;) .

Beautiful pictures! San Diego is my FAVORITE city! Are those on taken on Shelter Island?

Lately, I have been seeking more of Jesus, intimacy with HIM, I want a love afair with our Savior. After praying that this morning, I went for a run and Captivated came on my Ipod and I was just broken, broken before HIM! I love the words of that song and this line has been my prayer all day…..

May my life be one unbroken gaze
Fixed upon the beauty of Your face!!

Bless you and your awesome ministry!

Another free photo program I just heard about is “Picnik.” It works with Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, and a number of other social networking and photo sites. Based on some of the photos I’ve seen from friends who were playing with Picnik, it seems that it can do some pretty fun/cool stuff. http://www.picnik.com/ One interesting thing is that you don’t have to run any installation – it’ll work directly from your browser!

Thank you for the pictures, does my heart good to see Coronado bridge though it did make me miss San Diego! Have you ever eaten the clam chowder at Anthony’s at the harbor? It’s fantastic!

Nikon just came out with a great new (cheap) lense… I want to get one, and it's probably a better fit for digital cameras (at least the ones with the smaller sensors like the D40 through the D300) than the “thrifty fifty” lense. It's a 35mm DX format with an F1.8 aperture, and this will be a fun lense to shoot with:

http://nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product/Cam…

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09021002nikon…

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09021301nikon…

Nikon just came out with a great new (cheap) lense… I want to get one, and it's probably a better fit for digital cameras (at least the ones with the smaller sensors like the D40 through the D300) than the “thrifty fifty” lense. It's a 35mm DX format with an F1.8 aperture, and this will be a fun lense to shoot with:

http://nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product/Cam…

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09021002nikon…

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09021301nikon…