Photography - Getting Technical Equipment

[4STIX]

Dear Wibble
A certain pinked member of this forum who wishes to remain anonymous, has asked me to ask this question !
At a forthcoming event he wishes to take a group photo of certain female members but the problem is that the sun keeps getting blocked out ! this happened last year, but he didnt have the heart to say anything.
please help
F.

[wibble]

Make sure sun is either at side or behind the camera and when taking group photo's try and think of using props or layers and levels to the shot with various and unusual angles

[Madame Moorhen]

Has Wibble been to the PO yet as I'm being encouraged to try using RAW, although apparently what I didn't know is that the Canon came with some software (which hubby didn't upload) which can deal with that.

It's partly because I see so much better (closer) shots using the same macro lens as me but I was wondering why I couldn't achieve the same.

The answer seems to be - better camera, use flash and high f numbers and tweak a lot.

Also I may have to look into other kinds of flash than the one that pops up on the camera.

[wibble]

on most DSLR cameras you should have anoption to take photos and have a copy of both raw and jpeg - use that one rather than single raw or jpeg option - much better for software manipulation

Flash never use that horrible thing on your camera - if you really need a flash buy a dedicated unit or better still avoid using a flash, get some reflectors less than £10 on amazon or ebay to use natural light nothing beats it use what you have and avoid flash whenever you can

[Madame Moorhen]

I disagree, in my woodland where light levels are very low I'm getting much better shots than without flash! Obviously if I had some fancy flash type of things (no idea what is available as never looked) rather than blast in the face of insects from the camera type flash, I'd get better effects.

The main reason for using flash is with macro photography Wibble, so you can up the f number for depth of field without upping the ISO.

[wibble]

What about hiring some flash and perhaps small lights to try and see what best suits your needs I know this is something you can do in UK .......... I would anticipate that there may be something similar in France ??

[Madame Moorhen]

I dunno - I'll ask around my photographer friends on G+ and see what they are using - and maybe Santa will bring me something! I'm in no rush and feel that winter is the time to (1) read the manual ;D and (2) look into this more.

For the moment too busy getting out there shooting butterflies as they've all started arriving! The main thing is I am having fun and becoming more and more addicted.

[Deleted]

I don't know if I'll be laughed off the forum but I would like to understand something....

Is my 35mm Nikon EM only good for a museum these days? I've telephoto and wide-angle lenses.

The reason I ask is that I'm having to rely on someone to take pictures for my blog on a digital camera, and that arrangement isn't working out perfectly, so I might have to get my own, and as I'm a technophobe the prospect is daunting, and I'd rather not.....

Thank
Dearest anon, I've moved this post so that the tech bods are more likely to spot it and respond!

[troll]

Is that a real camera, with real film?

[lib]

Yep, it's a proper SLR. Good camera of its day. Got an old canon myself but not used it for yonks.
Changed to nikon and olympus digitals.

So never needed to check if i could use canon lenses on the nikon 'cos you can't, maybe annon could buy a digital canon and use the 'old' lenses.