Two months and thousands of pictures have passed since I bought my Pentax K200D. Since buying it the camera has been no more than an arm’s reach from me day and night. I have begun climbing the learning curve of photography and started to develop an understanding of terms such as aperture, ISO and focal length. So, how has owning a DSLR changed my life?
Owning a DSLR changes the way that you view the world. I have found that I am constantly looking for photo opportunities. I am constantly framing the world and looking at scenes and objects more closely, trying to tease out interesting details and angles – finding the shot. This happens when driving, when walking, when shopping, basically all the time.
The camera has become my way of recording the world around me. People and events pass before my lens and are quickly catalogued in my photo collection. The beauty of the DSLR is that it is so fast that I can quickly snap twenty or thirty shots and do so in any lighting condition by rapidly altering the camera settings. The camera is flexible in other ways too. Even though I am only shooting with the supplied 18-55mm Pentax kit lens I am able to shoot quite wide angle shots at 18mm and get reasonably close to more distant objects. Similarly although not a macro lens I have been able to shoot some nice close-ups of flowers and insects.
Working with the kit lens has illustrated its shortcomings and allowed me to the gap between what I am able to shoot and what I want to shoot. I have found, for example, that I want to be able to get closer to wildlife. When down near the river I have often wanted to take some photographs of birds but have not been able to zoom in close enough. From this I have realised that my next purchase should be a telephoto lens. I have also discovered that there are quite a few occasions when I can’t make the most of the available light and so need to get a “fast” prime lens.
When a lens is described as telephoto zoom it essentially means that the array of glass lenses within the barrel of the lens are set up so that it is possible to magnify a distant object as though looking through a telescope. There are many different zooms on the market from a range of manufacturers and at widely varying prices. I have established that I need a lens that will zoom to from 55mm, the maximum zoom of my kit lens, to between 200 and 300 mm. While I could pay about $600 for the Pentax 55-300 mm lens I think that the 70-300 mm lenses made by Sigma and Tamron are more in my budget at the moment. It is possible to pay thousands of dollars for a zoom and I don’t think that I am there yet.
A “fast” lens is one that has a wide maximum aperture. The aperture refers to the size of the area in a lens that admits light. It is similar to the pupil of the eye. Aperture is measured in f-stops. A “fast” lens, so called because it allows a lot of light and therefore requires the shutter to open only for a short time, has a low f number. Low f numbers are in the range of 1.4 to about 2.8. Past that the lens is a good deal less useful in low light without compromising on things like shutter speed and the sensitivity of the light sensor in the camera. See, I really am learning a lot.
The lens I am looking at is a Pentax f1.4 50 mm. This is known as a prime lens or standard lens. Such a lens allows the user to take pictures in low light conditions.
Past the two lenses described above I can imagine a time where I would like to get a lens specifically for taking pictures of landscapes (wide angle).
Since buying the camera I have eschewed using it on the automatic setting (where the camera makes all of the decisions for you) and have predominantly used the manual exposure mode. Given the sophisticated software that the camera possesses this may seem a strange decision. After all if the camera can detect what I am focussing on and how much light is available and can adjust itself to take a shot “perfectly” why would I want to trust my own judgement?
Well this is where the technology meets the art (if I can flatter myself with the term art). As a photographer (flattery again) you want to be able to decide whether to over or underexpose a picture, whether you want to have the shutter open longer (to create blur and a sense of motion) or shorter, how sensitive you want the camera to be to light and how soft or sharp you want a shot. Certainly using manual means that I have deleted hundreds of pictures but the ones that worked gave me a sense of satisfaction I wouldn’t have otherwise felt.
The trick now is to develop a style of photography and adjust my technique to match it. The only method of doing so is to shoot more. As far as style goes I have developed a taste for black and white photography as it makes the viewer focus on details, lines and shadows rather than being attracted to colour. I also like shooting wildlife.
While all of this is daunting there is a wealth of help on the internet. There are many people out there who will bend over backwards to provide advice and point the novice in the right direction. I have bought a pro flickr account to post my best shots too and have joined a number of groups where I have met some people kind enough to offer me their ideas. It has also resulted in me going to a couple of outings with the Photographers in Perth group.
Photography is really becoming a hobby and a passion for me and has offered an outlet to my creative side which is rewarding and easy to share with others. The past two months with the K200D have been fabulous and I can’t wait to get out and take some more pictures.
