Photography Thread

Years ago I made 3 bean bags of different sizes. Those work well in the crook of a tree branch, on a car or fence, etc. to steady a camera. Heck, even a rolled up sweatshirt or something similar.

 

Are you zooming all the way into digital zoom? I typically stay within the optical range.

 

Yes sir, digital, wanted to see what maxed out looked like, even though it's digital.. it's really not that bad... atleast not for that.. although during the day time with humidity, digital is trash lol

 

Gotcha. Thought maybe you knew a secret to keeping things crisp at full zoom lol.

 

No sir, no secrets here...99% of my pics w the p900 are in auto, no tripod, and occasionally I'll touch up the color on my phone, because the pics don't always come out as we actually see them

 

Yeah, Nikon really did nail it with the P900. I'm just waiting for you to announce your purchase of a P1000 ;-)

 

Man , absolutely wish I could, but unfortunately it's just not in the cards right now lol

 

Learned that this is a pipevine swallowtail. I was a buggy kid, and a buddy and I searched fields and creeks for much of our youth collecting and studying bugs. In all the things we saw and caught, I don't remember ever seeing one of these. So it has a nerdy-cool factor for me.

 

It is a neat, I've never seen one

 

Nice. It sure would be fun to know the names of some of these cool birds you're getting

 

Lol, you know the hummingbird, the other is a yellow billed cuckoo....I believe

 

Cool bird. Never have seen one before. Interesting to read about, too. They like tent caterpillars, in case you saw this one near those.

 

Going through the archives. Last year, in May. Two tigers, a zebra, and a monarch on this busy bush. Not the best photo, but I like the activity.

 

A zebra from last May.

 

Well you guys taught me something else - apparently I have digital zoom as well. I've been relying on the zoom lense only.

I'm curious now if that's why my moon photos are so bright - there is a ton of black background around it so it's like a light bulb in the dark.

Expect some more 5x and 10x digital zoom moon photos tonight if it stays clear. Hoping that will help with the contrast in auto settings (although I didn't have any luck with manual settings, but I probably did it wrong)

 

Keep trying, I religiously use auto, and most things seem to turn out fine, especially moon shots

 

Don't forget what Boss1815 said. The moon is bright, like daylight. So take several shots, increasing your shutter speed each time. You'll see the moon go from a nondescript white ball, all the way to dim if you go far enough. If you're seeing just a bright ball, your shutter speed is too slow. You could take some daylight photos of whatever and make note of the settings. Then duplicate those at night and you'll probably be in the ballpark.

 

...even a daytime moon pic on a clear day can show some detail, for practice. Some detail is lost on here, though.

 

A tiger from May 2023.

 

Did some surf shots for a buddy.

 

I took this moonset last Fall outside Golden, CO

 

I'm drooling over the new nikon z6iii... but sooo $$$

 

Alright, i did a factory reset on the camera and now the manual settings show the settings you provided. i think they came out a lot better this time. Only issue now is that with the digital zoom, it's only zoomed on the LCD screen when i take the photo. When i look at the photos later, they are zoomed out as if i didn't use the digital zoom. feel like i'm missing another setting here.

These were taken just now with the settings you provided, and i switched to manual focus as well because the auto focus was freaking out a bit. Much happier with these - thanks to everyone!

Edit - when i say i did a factory reset and the manual settings show the settings you provided, it was because when i was messing with the manual settings last night they weren't giving me the same numerical options you posted. i couldn't figure out what was going on so at the end of the night i looked up how to factory reset the camera and did that (i had a cousin who knows a lot about cameras mess with it about a decade ago). tonight, when i looked at the manual settings, i was able to set them exactly as you specified and the results were night and day (no pun intended)

 

What camera/lens ??

 

So the camera is a Canon Rebel T3 - my wife bought it for me a long time ago, maybe 10 years (i think they're up to T6 or T7 now). I bought a zoom lens for it recently and all i can tell you is what i can read off it - it's the 70-300mm zoom lens with image stabilizer. the stabilizer is nice - when i press the button halfway down, the stabilizer kicks in and allows me to manually focus before pressing fully down and taking the photo

 

Those look good... it's that tonight ? May have to go back out in a few minutes lol

 

And that's why I still only have nikon p900....lol.
I IS BROKE

 

The zoom lens has been a great investment. I'll post more pics tomorrow night. Most of the good ones are from the DC Zoo, and I caught a couple of bald eagles out in a filed during early covid years. Saw the eagles on my way home from work (didn't know we had them around here) so I grabbed the camera when I got home and drove back since it was just a couple of miles away. They were probably 200-250 yards away so the photos aren't super clear (I tried to prop my elbows on the hood of the 4runner to stabilize) but it was a cool experience.

 

Yep, took those a bit earlier. Moon rose a couple of hours ago. If I wait until it's overhead (less atmosphere to photograph through) then they may get better. It was just over the horizon above the houses across the street when I took those