Do you shoot?

[Rhody31]

Adog, Pilot, I may need some advice on a new toy.
Mrs. Rhody and I are expecting and she wanted to get a new camera. Since I've been shooting with professional stuff, I told her if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right.
Tomorrow between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., I'm headed down to the photo shop to pick up the D7000 we bought today. It's going to be used mainly for personal use, but I plan on using it at work as well.
How is this going to change my life taking photos?

For the better.

Seriously, there'll be a bit of a learning curve, but you will see rapid improvement. Have you had a chance to play with it?

I did tonight. I have no idea how to change the settings or what any of the buttons on it mean.
Also, now that I can boost my ISO up to 6400, what should I be doing with my settings?
Normally, if I was at 1600, my ftp would be at 2.something with my shutter speed at like 250.
I shot a little boys lacrosse and the pictures weren't good, but the quality was insane. I can't figure out how to shoot faster, but I'll learn more in the coming days. Saturday morning I'm shooting girls lacrosse; then I have a family gathering in the evening. Sunday, we have a family birthday party.

 

[Pilot]

What time of day were you shooting at ISO 1600? I assume dusk. There shouldn't be any reason to go that high until the sun starts setting. That said, you can probably shoot that D7000 at ISO 1600 without much of any loss of quality (to a regular person's eye).

You said the photos didn't turn out very well ... how do you mean? I might try to bump the ISO another click or two higher, then run your shutter speed up a few clicks as well. You probably wouldn't want to keep it that high for shots for your family, but for a newspaper, even 6400 works when you have to use it. A lot of my gymnasium and night shots are at or near 6400.

 

[Rhody31]

What time of day were you shooting at ISO 1600? I assume dusk. There shouldn't be any reason to go that high until the sun starts setting. That said, you can probably shoot that D7000 at ISO 1600 without much of any loss of quality (to a regular person's eye).

You said the photos didn't turn out very well ... how do you mean? I might try to bump the ISO another click or two higher, then run your shutter speed up a few clicks as well. You probably wouldn't want to keep it that high for shots for your family, but for a newspaper, even 6400 works when you have to use it. A lot of my gymnasium and night shots are at or near 6400.

Pilot, in the weeks since I've gotten the camera, my photos are getting better. I was using settings I would use for a D1H on the D7000 and it wasn't necessary.
Now that I've adjusted a bit, the shots are coming out sharper. When it's been super bright, I've had my ISO at 250, FStop at 5 and apperture at 1250 but they're still a little bright. However, I haven't been using the hood for the lens, so I may start that and see if it helps.
The best part is I'm shooting bigger files, so I'm getting shots big enough to run as main art. If I didn't fill the frame with the D1H, I could only get four inch files; now I can shoot and not worry about it. I also took some profile pics for some features that are running this week and the quality is great; the poses are so so, but that's because I'm not exactly a pro with setting stuff up.

 

[Georgiaguy]

I had to learn how to shoot pictures in college at the college paper because we had talented, yet flakey photogs that might or might now show up at any given time.
Since then I have learned from photos in every newsroom where they woudl talk to reporters who were slowly phasing them out and tried to learn from all of them. I think in some ways I am a better photog because I know where to look for the shots at sporting events.

 

[valpo87]

I was hired for a weekly sports reporter job. Two days into the job I was given a camera and you would think I gave the look of "What in the heck is this?"

I was terrible ... not just terrible, but Charles Barkley "turble."
Finally I got a LOT better and actually hope to pick up a couple of WNPA (Washington State) awards for both writing and photography this year.

 

[ADodgen]

What time of day were you shooting at ISO 1600? I assume dusk. There shouldn't be any reason to go that high until the sun starts setting. That said, you can probably shoot that D7000 at ISO 1600 without much of any loss of quality (to a regular person's eye).

You said the photos didn't turn out very well ... how do you mean? I might try to bump the ISO another click or two higher, then run your shutter speed up a few clicks as well. You probably wouldn't want to keep it that high for shots for your family, but for a newspaper, even 6400 works when you have to use it. A lot of my gymnasium and night shots are at or near 6400.

Pilot, in the weeks since I've gotten the camera, my photos are getting better. I was using settings I would use for a D1H on the D7000 and it wasn't necessary.
Now that I've adjusted a bit, the shots are coming out sharper. When it's been super bright, I've had my ISO at 250, FStop at 5 and apperture at 1250 but they're still a little bright. However, I haven't been using the hood for the lens, so I may start that and see if it helps.
The best part is I'm shooting bigger files, so I'm getting shots big enough to run as main art. If I didn't fill the frame with the D1H, I could only get four inch files; now I can shoot and not worry about it. I also took some profile pics for some features that are running this week and the quality is great; the poses are so so, but that's because I'm not exactly a pro with setting stuff up.

First, I promise I'm going to respond to your PM. Sorry 'bout that.

Second, I wanted to point out that f-stop and aperture are the same thing. So, I want clarify: ISO at 250, aperture 5 and shutter speed 1250?

 

[Rhody31]

What time of day were you shooting at ISO 1600? I assume dusk. There shouldn't be any reason to go that high until the sun starts setting. That said, you can probably shoot that D7000 at ISO 1600 without much of any loss of quality (to a regular person's eye).

You said the photos didn't turn out very well ... how do you mean? I might try to bump the ISO another click or two higher, then run your shutter speed up a few clicks as well. You probably wouldn't want to keep it that high for shots for your family, but for a newspaper, even 6400 works when you have to use it. A lot of my gymnasium and night shots are at or near 6400.

Pilot, in the weeks since I've gotten the camera, my photos are getting better. I was using settings I would use for a D1H on the D7000 and it wasn't necessary.
Now that I've adjusted a bit, the shots are coming out sharper. When it's been super bright, I've had my ISO at 250, FStop at 5 and apperture at 1250 but they're still a little bright. However, I haven't been using the hood for the lens, so I may start that and see if it helps.
The best part is I'm shooting bigger files, so I'm getting shots big enough to run as main art. If I didn't fill the frame with the D1H, I could only get four inch files; now I can shoot and not worry about it. I also took some profile pics for some features that are running this week and the quality is great; the poses are so so, but that's because I'm not exactly a pro with setting stuff up.

First, I promise I'm going to respond to your PM. Sorry 'bout that.

Second, I wanted to point out that f-stop and aperture are the same thing. So, I want clarify: ISO at 250, aperture 5 and shutter speed 1250?

Yes. That sounds right.
Sorry about the terminology mix-up. Previously I identified those numbers by their placement on the display.

 

[ADodgen]

What time of day were you shooting at ISO 1600? I assume dusk. There shouldn't be any reason to go that high until the sun starts setting. That said, you can probably shoot that D7000 at ISO 1600 without much of any loss of quality (to a regular person's eye).

You said the photos didn't turn out very well ... how do you mean? I might try to bump the ISO another click or two higher, then run your shutter speed up a few clicks as well. You probably wouldn't want to keep it that high for shots for your family, but for a newspaper, even 6400 works when you have to use it. A lot of my gymnasium and night shots are at or near 6400.

Pilot, in the weeks since I've gotten the camera, my photos are getting better. I was using settings I would use for a D1H on the D7000 and it wasn't necessary.
Now that I've adjusted a bit, the shots are coming out sharper. When it's been super bright, I've had my ISO at 250, FStop at 5 and apperture at 1250 but they're still a little bright. However, I haven't been using the hood for the lens, so I may start that and see if it helps.
The best part is I'm shooting bigger files, so I'm getting shots big enough to run as main art. If I didn't fill the frame with the D1H, I could only get four inch files; now I can shoot and not worry about it. I also took some profile pics for some features that are running this week and the quality is great; the poses are so so, but that's because I'm not exactly a pro with setting stuff up.

First, I promise I'm going to respond to your PM. Sorry 'bout that.

Second, I wanted to point out that f-stop and aperture are the same thing. So, I want clarify: ISO at 250, aperture 5 and shutter speed 1250?

Yes. That sounds right.
Sorry about the terminology mix-up. Previously I identified those numbers by their placement on the display.

No worries. Just wanted to make sure I had it straight. What mode are you shooting in?

 

[Rhody31]

Manual. When I first got the camera, I was in automatic aperture.
My freelancer told me to turn off the tracking and there was some other thing I had to fix in the menu, but I can't remember off-hand. I wrote it down though.

 

[Matt Stephens]

This is my first time to do anything baseball. Just took a couple in between games at the state tourney I had to cover. Thoughts?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59555061@N05/sets/72157626729987970/show/

 

[Matt Stephens]

I didn't take it, one of our staff photogs did, but it's incredibly simple and I love it for some reason.

 

[Rhody31]

Some shots with my new baby - the D7000

Kid's nose explodes in blood after hitting his face diving for a ball:

Keep your head on a swivel and this won't happen"

I wanted my freelancer to do some posed shots for me; he couldn't make it, so this was my best effort:

I couldn't do this with my D1H:

This was an accident; worthless for a newspaper, but it looks cool.

Again, the detail on this wouldn't have happened with my old camera; shot it in a thick fog, too: