GRD, f5, 1/400, ISO 200, RAW, 40mmTook this picture today while walking back to the office after lunch. It is definitely very nice to work in the City since it allows me to take some interesting pictures during lunch or on my way home after work. I had the 40mm lens attached as it was raining on and off so the adapter lenses make the GRD a bit more weatherproof ;).
I cropped it slightly and changed the contrast after converting it to b&w. I like the result and it makes for a nice street shot in my blog collection.
I've also updated the links to "Other Blogs & Pages" today so go and check them out, too.
Hi,, thanks for putting a link up to my blog as well. Like the old bailey shot.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI look at your site everyday and its pure inspiration.
I have tried street photography with my DSLR but most the time I can’t be bothered to carry the thing around and then miss great shots. Over the last few years I have been so hung up on getting the best quality using tripods and shutter cables etc and it’s taken all the fun and excitement out of photography. So much so that I stopped taking pictures altogether and took up oil painting. Anyway I discovered your fantastic site and my obsession for photography has come back, thank you
I have now sold my Nikon D200 and bought a GRD 2 with all accessories, but would like to ask you what settings you use, do you adjust contrast, exposure composition etc etc.
Do you have any tips to get the best out of my new GRD?
Also I followed your link to JPG magazine, it looks good and I wondered if you can buy it in the UK.
I have so many questions about the GRD is there anyway of emailing you?
Hope you can share your knowledge
Martyn
Thanks for your comment Andy. I really like your blog and find it very inspirational. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteMartyn, with your comment you made my day or what, my week. Thanks so much for that. I am really happy to hear this, it just puts my blog in a whole different light.
I can see how you felt about losing the fun and excitement of something you enjoyed doing. Sorry to hear you got to that point but I am happy that you got back to it and this time just for the fun of it. The GRD is in my opinion a great camera as it is fun to use and I just WANT to use it.
I would be very happy to share my knowledge about the GRD with you. While I never took a single photography lesson I learned everything I know by reading forums and looking at other people's pictures. The GRD opened a whole new door for me as it allows me to experiment more and forces me to work with it's "limitations".
You can email me, this is no problem and I will gladly share more details with you as I do not want this post to become too long and confusing. My email is cristian[dot]sorega [at] gmail[dot]com.
I will also write down some of my settings and some tips over the next days with my pictures to add more "value" to the blog.
Regarding the JPG Mag I believe they ship worldwide but I have to admit that I am not subscribed yet. Something I need to change. You can always download the pdf version and this is how I use to read it as it is more convenient on my UMPC.
A few quick tips here:
- Use it as much and often as you can and try out different things, this is the only way to know what to expect.
- The first pictures will probably be disapointing but once you understand the way the camera works you get more and more out of it. I am still impressed by it's quality and what it can deliver.
- I almost always use spot or macro focus and only sometimes go to the snap focus (low light) or manual focus (static subjects or OOF images). When fulpressing the shuter I find the response is fast enough and it seems to reset itself to snap anyway if it can't focus.
- I use the following settings for Color: -2 contrast, +1 sharpness and +1 color depth. B&W: +2 contrast, +1 sharpness. This gives the best jpg results as I find.
- Most of the time I have the camera on manual and try to always stay between f2.4-f5.6 and never go below 1/800.
- When shooting color I try to expose as long as possible. But for exposures over 1sec. I use ISO 200 or 400 if possible.
- In b&w mode I try to use ISO 200-800 and try to nail the exposure (underexposing is not good here) as it gives "crisper" and very sharp images.
- For color shots I try to stay at ISO 64-400 if possible but with Noise Ninja you can get decent enough images even at ISO 1600 (but you need to nail the exposure).
- On P or A mode I usually set EV to -3 or -7 and turn the display off.
Hope this helps but let me know if you have more questions and either send me an email or post them here.