Photographic Equipment – P1 and P2

Camera Basis Equipment

Camera body, case, choice of lens, shoot in RAW and jpeg (as a backup), always carry spare batteries, and extra SD cards.

SD Cards

Use cards with a smaller capacity or don’t completely fill a large capacity card.  Choose a card with a high ‘C’ rating (processing speed – essential for shooting bursts or sport) and the highest ‘U’ numbering (most recent models).  The transfer rate MB/S it the image transfer rate – again choose the highest available.

Recommend: smaller memory cards, simply use more and catalogue their storage.

Lens Choice

Ideally shoot with a prime lens.  You will then really learn how to use your camera and

‘learn what the camera sees’

Perfecting shooting with a prime lens will create sharper, clearer pictures.  Zoom lenses have sweet spots and therefore work better at certain distances.  You have to learn where these are for your lenses.

Mimium focal length of 14-24 otherwise the lenses can create too much distortion of the image.

Filters are essential for landscape photography. MD filters for digital and polarising filters for shooting water, mirror, metallic surfaces as they reduce reflection.  Use an ND variable filter to allow for changes in the intensity.  Colour filters are not important as shooting in RAW colour is added in post production.  Filters will slow down the exposure eg when using flash outside on a sunny day, and help the clarity of water.

Camera Settings

Manual or Aperture settings should be used.  Choose the lowest aperture and the fastest shutter speed combination.

White balance: set to auto.  Can change in post production

RAW files – only records ISO.  JPEG embeds all information immediately into the file so the options for post production are limited.

Bracketing: use for under exposure/normal/over exposure.

Light metering: there are 3 types 1) environment – tests all areas. 2) central – central 25% of the image 3) spotlight – pinhole metering. To set the light meter – focus on a neutral grey using the central light metering, exclude any highlights, keep the settings and take the picture. Can use a light metering app.

Under exposure use for photographic silhouette

Histogram: should how much is over/under exposed.

Histogram Alert: blinking shows the over exposed area.

Focus: autofocus (Nikon AF-S), Lock (Nikon AF-L), Continous Focus (Nikon AF-C), single focusing.

Drive set up: single shots, bursts, continous

Vibration Reductions: VR stabilisation. With off if you are using a tripod as the camera may compensation for a shake that is not there.

Depth of field preview button: product, close up.  Can use a depth of field calcuator app.