Beginner Hi and looking for advice

markh

markh

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Hi everyone!

I'm Mark from Belfast.

I'm looking for some advice on cameras. I currently have a Canon Eos 350d with the kit 18-55mm lenses and have been out and about to take some landscape/nightscape pics on the mourne mountains. My pics aren't great and as I'm still learning I know this is to be expected

I would love to capture the milky way and sunrises.

My dilema is, do invest in a better lens for the 350d or invest in a new camera. Im not tied to any particular brand but if im being honest it would probably be a nikon or a canon.

My budget will stretch to a nikon d5500 or canon equivalent but do I need a new camera or will my aging 350d do with a new lens.

untitled (11 of 1).jpg FB_IMG_1476195967300.jpg

These are the pics I like the most of what I have taken so far.

Thanks!
 
The pics you have don't look too bad so what is it you are expecting?

Whether you replace the 350D is up to you but a new lens will certainly be better then the kit lens - again depending on what you want to achieve.

If you do go for a new lens I would recommend going for the EF series and not the EFS series which is for 1.6 crop cameras only.

The best lenses are the L glass lenses but these are obviously much more expensive than some other lenses.

If you replace the camera then going by what you want to take I would recommend a FF camera like the 6D but there again you would also have to get good lenses to make the most of it.

So going by that and depending on your budget - lenses first.
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Thanks petersmart. Those 2 pics are out of about 300 Ive taken. I've watched amazing sunrises over mountains and the pictures never seem to do them justice.

I'm leaning towards a new to me lens as it will give me more ideas of what can be achieved.

A friend I go up the mountains with has a d7100 and after reading through these forums I think its just kit envy as my pics never seem to match up to his.

What lens would you recommend for landscapes?
 
A fairly wide fast lens may do the trick.

Something like a 24mm prime from Canon, if your savvy and can wait you can probably pick one up on here without breaking the bank.

Wide enough for a landscape and fast enough to eeek out the stars.
 
Thanks the888account. Will start lookung around for one. Need to get my posts up before I can buy one from here!
 
Carry on contributing to the thread, have a look around and soon you will be able to participate in the classifieds.
There are other routes to get camera gear, so don't limit your search just here.
 
Oh no I'm not here just to buy stuff. Been reading through lots of threads. Unbelievable how much you can learn from others on here. Thanks for all your help so far.
 
I am a beginner and have to say that to my newby eye those pics are lovely.....
 
Thanks FionaS. Ideally I'd like to try bring up my good picture ratio. From reading the landscape and nightscape threads on here I've a few things I want to try.
 
Hiya Mark, the biggest problem with your shots above is light pollution. Not sure what software you use, all I did was open in Elements 11, click on the adjustments layer, select hue/saturation, select the red and bring the saturation down, not perfect but it does look better than the light pollution.

What you need to try do is find a spot that has very little light pollution, also for shots like this, I would shoot raw, work two layers in ACR, one for the foreground, one for the stars, that way you can reduce the noise in the sky/stars separately to the forground and blend them using layers.

I think if you have full Photoshop? you can also do it selectively instead of layers. Not sure on your PP'ing skills but mine aren't the best, its just not as hard as it sounds :)

This took me no more than a minute

FB_IMG_1476195967300.jpg
 
Agree with Phil D, light pollution is the main problem. Your kit lens in a dark site will pick up the MW.

The attached was taken with my kit lens at 18mm, f3.5, 20 seconds, and ISO 1600. It is far from good (and is one for the reject pile) and was taken in an area with a bit of light pollution, as can be seen by the light on the trees, and there is cloud too. A faster lens would make getting a shot easier but I hope it shows that the MW and stars are possible with a kit lens.

Dave

1600.jpg
 
Phil-D that looks amazing, thanks for doing that. I have lightroom but I have no idea how to use properly. Must have a go!
 
Tringa thanks very much for showing that. Need to go over my settings and get back out and try to take some pics.
 
markh said:
Phil-D that looks amazing, thanks for doing that. I have lightroom but I have no idea how to use properly. Must have a go!
Click to expand...

Mark, I'm not even close to being a PP'ing expert but between members on here and Youtube, I've learnt loads.

One thing I have found, what I use to think was hard to do, is fairly easy once you've done it a couple of times :)
 
I've a few videos on youtube to watch now after seeing your post! As they say, practice makes perfect ;)
 
Hello Mark, now just so you know, I'm cr*p at landscape, i just don't think I've got the eye for it. That said I can certainly appreciate it and look longingly at some of the images on here and think how wonderful they are. Anyway what i really wanted to say is, although the majority of landscape photos are taken with wide lens, a lot can be done with a lens up to 300mm. Look on Flickr (maybe type in landscape 300mm as a search).
 
If you look on FB at Larne through the lens and some of the causeway coast/glens photo pages you'll see some amazing stuff with the odd night shot too. If you get away from the light pollution you'll do ok with a 1.8 lens 1477253900277.jpg this is from around garron point just north of carnlough. With a 35 1.8 if I remember correctly
 
From the examples shown, I would say a new camera especially Nikon/Sony/Pentax as they have sensors more suited to these type of shots. Canon sensors in general are rather "noisy" apart from the latest ones.
 
Keep at it Markh
I would recommend watch a few YouTube videos on Astro/Night photography. This should give you the grounding in the settings and do's / dont's. It will also no doubt give you some tuition on processing the resulting images you capture. Then its a case of putting the theory in to practice, and this typically involves finding at distance low light pollution locations and multiple trips out in to the wilderness until the weather also plays ball.

Our little neck of the world being an Island experiences very changeable weather and lighting conditions. So its very challenging to get good astro/night landscapes. In general I'm confident if the budget is tight that you will see an improvement in your imagery without spending a penny on new lenses by doing the above. Once the equipment becomes the limiting factor then spend you monies on the fastest glass you can get for your monies ... When considering the lens, try to think ahead in two ways, will you be wanting to do other types of photography? and will you be upgrading your camera to either a new system or format APC > Full Frame in the near future, factor these touch points into your lens buying decision.

Looking forward to seeing your next series of images in this genre.

Ps. I couldnt agree more with Mintchocs > Canon sensors in general are rather "noisy" apart from the latest ones.

Regards
Geoff

Me on Flickr
Geoff Moore Adventures in Landscape Photography
 
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Snip:
Mintchocs said:
Canon sensors in general are rather "noisy" apart from the latest ones.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I think that's a rather generalistic statement so I can't let it go unchallenged. The Canon 6D was introduced in 2012, so I don't think its sensor can really be classed as one of 'the latest ones', but it's known for its low light performance; and certainly photographers such as Chad Powell didn't seem to have too much trouble obtaining some fantastic looking night sky photos from it, as this article clearly shows:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ated-Milky-Ways-colourful-constellations.html

I'm not into night sky photography but from what I've read the images are best shot in RAW rather than JPEG and then usually need to be processed using Lightroom or similar software programme to bring out the detail. I'm sure there will be lots of tutorials on the internet/YouTube, etc. Hope this is useful.
 
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