Resolving Issues

I tried to address the three issues that I identified in my previous post in various ways. I mostly had to purchase stuff this time and so I tried to list and link to what I got in case you want to check them out.

Firstly, size and weight. Since the DSLR is both heavy and bulky I needed a good carrying bag. I actually got two:

1. The Lowpro Toploader Zoom 45 AW. This is small, sturdy, and has a weather sealing collapsible cover and is ideal when I'm moving around with a single lens on the camera.
2. Canon Deluxe Photo Backpack 200EG. When things get more involved and I need more room, this comes to the rescue. It can be organized very efficiently to hold lenses and multiple camera bodies (although multiple bodies is not for me at this time). It has numerous pockets to hold different kinds of camera accessories, like SD Cards, filters, and the rest of the stuff that I don't fully understand yet. I actually liked this bag a lot and it made me even more excited to go out on more serious shoots.

So why did I get that backpack if I only have a single kit lens? Well, because I decided to go ahead and move beyond that. Since the main benefit of owning a DSLR is being able to replace the lens, I did just that, I got my self some additional glass. Since I'm not ready to invest insurmountable amounts of money into lenses yet, I decided to start with the basics and buy a couple of used lenses.

I knew that getting a good modern lens would cost me quite a bit, so I decided to look for good older lens. After doing some research I decided that the Canon Zoom Lens EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 was quite a good option for its price, it's a better build, has a ultra sonic AF motor and it has more reach. I also learned from an online article that there are multiple variations of that lens. One other thing I found out was that some older Elan II film cameras were sold with this lens as their kit lens. So I started looking for people selling these old cameras used along with its lens. This proved to be cheaper than buying the lens alone from Ebay. Of course I now have a useless camera lying around but it can't hurt.

Now there are drawbacks of course. With this older lens I lose image stabilization (IS) which means more chances to blur my photos. I also lose the close range 18-28mm that my kit lens covered. However, as I have read in photography books (see below), I should be mostly shooting on a tripod to get crisp images in most cases and in that setting I should disable IS. For closer shots, I will still have my kit lens with me (at least until I decide to sell it or get rid of it) so I can replace the lenses when needed. There is also the age factor, newer lenses have this extra shine to them, but I did like the fact that the 28-105mm took crisper images under the same lighting conditions, perhaps due to its wider aperture. The results are mixed though in hand-held operation, as I will show when I post some samples of my next shoot (which I already took, but didn't blog about yet), but it turned out that my best picks were all taken with the 28-105mm lens.

A second lens that I bought was the Canon Zoom Lens EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM. This telephoto lens has nothing remarkable except for the fact that it is, well, a telephoto lens. As you could see from my failed attempts to shoot animals that are far away, I had to get something with significantly more reach, and this just happened to be a very affordable option, especially that I got it used.

While these lenses are not the best out there, they are good alternatives to allow me to experiment with different lenses and get familiar with different kinds of lenses before I invest in better, and exponentially more expensive, ones. I intend to try even more varieties of older lenses whenever I get a chance until I'm ready to make the leap. Hopefully, I will know where to spend my money.

So the last issue I had, was that I was apparently pretty bad at photography. This comes as a no surprise since I've just started. Technically I had a 35mm SLR more than 10 years ago but I never tried to put it to good use. So I went out and got some highly recommended photography books. Coincidentally they turned out to be all written by Scoot Shelby. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising since they are the same series after all. Here's what I got:

• The Digital Photography Book
• The Digital Photography Book Volume 2
• The Digital Photography Book Volume 3

These were very good read, at this point I read the first and half the second one, and are loaded with lots of non-technical tips which makes them perfect for starter like my self. There is a fourth volume in the series but I didn't get it yet.

In my next blog post, I will show some samples of my next shoot that made use of my new gear and what I have learned so far.

Getting Started

My first test for my new DSLR was at the Zoo. I figured out if I need to get some good pictures, I should start by going somewhere with variety. In retrospect, that might not have been the best idea. when everything is fenced, chances of getting good shots dramatically decreases.

As expected, most of my shots where blurry, out of focus, or just plain bad. However, a few were OK. And by OK I mean dramatically better than what I would typically capture with my point and shoot camera.

Slow moving animals and birds where probably the easiest to shoot. I tried using manual focus for most of my photos, to get a better feel of how focusing works and what to aim at. Needless to say this involved more effort and ruined shots but that's the advantage of digital SLRs. Flim is free!

I took all of the shots using the 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens that I got with my camera. This was OK for regular shots, but was severely lacking in both closeups and far shots.

Closeups were not very sharp

Far shots were, well, far

The image stabilization feature of the lens seemed to come in handy when I took shots for fast moving birds. These came out in relatively good focus, taking my skill level into account. This does not imply that they were as colorful as I would have wanted them to be.

I cropped and did minor editing to the photos later, but this test revealed three important things:

1. DSLRs are heavy and bulky!
2. Photography is not my thing... well not yet at least.
3. Although it is pretty early, I need to invest at least a little bit into better gear.

I believe I have made progress on all three points and will describe what I did in future posts trying as much as possible to stick with the chronological order of what I'm doing so we can see when/if progress is being made.

The dawn

Hi everybody. This is Mokhtar M. Khorshid, a guy that, at this point in time, knows almost nothing about photography and yet is starting a blog about it.

The point is, if it ever happened that I succeeded in becoming good at it, this could serve as a guide to others like myself. If it led to disaster, at least people will know what to avoid.

To get started, I have bought a Canon Rebel T3i based on multiple recommendations. The photo on the left is taken with my point and shoot HP Photosmart M525 camera.

I bought the bundle that comes with the kit lens EF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS II.

I will be posting my significant experiments as I learn new tricks here. Partially so that I will remember what I did!

I hope you'll find this blog useful. Feel free to leave comments to suggest ideas or correct mistakes.