How Long?
- Thread starter mant01
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- Martyn
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2003 - trekked through Himalayas, and laughed at a few guys with SLR's carrying the extra weight. Got back and looked at the results from my camera and thought i should have used an SLR!!!
2005 - Bought Canon 300D + kit, learning the basics for the next couple of years.
2009 - Bought a 400D, Sigma 10-20, Canon 70-200 f4 L and saw the quality of my work increase alot.
2010 - Considering buying a 40/50D and 100-400 L which will hopefully take me to the next level.
So the answer to your question is 4 years, since 2005, but it took until 2009 before i considered that i was producing consistant photo's that i would hang on my wall.
2005 - Bought Canon 300D + kit, learning the basics for the next couple of years.
2009 - Bought a 400D, Sigma 10-20, Canon 70-200 f4 L and saw the quality of my work increase alot.
2010 - Considering buying a 40/50D and 100-400 L which will hopefully take me to the next level.
So the answer to your question is 4 years, since 2005, but it took until 2009 before i considered that i was producing consistant photo's that i would hang on my wall.
Martyn...
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Since 1974
Usually right up until I walked out of Boots and opened the prints folder
OP
mant01
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- John
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Usually right up until I walked out of Boots and opened the prints folder
lol I know what you mean.
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- Dawn
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Hi John,
Good question .....
But I think that it is a matter of time and opinion and practic e.
I don't have a dslr (yet), but should have my first when I collect from the Post Office tomorrow.
However, I have enjoyed taking pics the past 16 or so months.
"how long did it take before you started to feel you could produce good results? " Personal opinion, you start producing good results from the first photo that you feel good about. It doesn't matter what other folk think, at the moment, they may not always get what you were trying to capture, as a beginner (as I am). Ultimately, I think that if you feel good and happy about the result of a pic, then go with that. If you get constructive C&C on the pic, take that as a learning experience, don't take it personally. Afterall, what you saw when taking the pic may not be what the viewer sees, although I guess at the end of the day (excuse the clique) it is the viewer who has the last say.
But if you are happy and confident with what you have snapped, then that is GREAT!
Photography is a very personal and emotional feeling, portrayed in picture. You will will have viewers who understand it ....... and those who don't. Just remember .... don't fell rejected!
Happy snapping
D
Good question .....
But I think that it is a matter of time and opinion and practic e.
I don't have a dslr (yet), but should have my first when I collect from the Post Office tomorrow.
However, I have enjoyed taking pics the past 16 or so months.
"how long did it take before you started to feel you could produce good results? " Personal opinion, you start producing good results from the first photo that you feel good about. It doesn't matter what other folk think, at the moment, they may not always get what you were trying to capture, as a beginner (as I am). Ultimately, I think that if you feel good and happy about the result of a pic, then go with that. If you get constructive C&C on the pic, take that as a learning experience, don't take it personally. Afterall, what you saw when taking the pic may not be what the viewer sees, although I guess at the end of the day (excuse the clique) it is the viewer who has the last say.
But if you are happy and confident with what you have snapped, then that is GREAT!
Photography is a very personal and emotional feeling, portrayed in picture. You will will have viewers who understand it ....... and those who don't. Just remember .... don't fell rejected!
Happy snapping
D
1984 - bought new AE-1 Programme, flash and a couple of lenses over next 12 months.
1985 - probably mastered enough to produce pictures I felt proud of and justified the expenditure on the kit
1998 - first child comes along, fed up lugging around camera kit along with baby stuff so switch to 35mm compact for all but special purposes
2002 - P&S Digital - upgraded every 2-3 years (always Canon) but very much "record" photographs rather than displaying mastery of the medium.
Nov 2009 - Canon 50D plus lenses arrives - so far just proving how much I've forgotten since the AE-1 went into (cosseted) retirement. Hoping to get better, if not the best, from it during 2010.
BTW - have lurked for a while, first post, but very impressed with advice, comments and helpfulless of TP.
Stephen
1985 - probably mastered enough to produce pictures I felt proud of and justified the expenditure on the kit
1998 - first child comes along, fed up lugging around camera kit along with baby stuff so switch to 35mm compact for all but special purposes
2002 - P&S Digital - upgraded every 2-3 years (always Canon) but very much "record" photographs rather than displaying mastery of the medium.
Nov 2009 - Canon 50D plus lenses arrives - so far just proving how much I've forgotten since the AE-1 went into (cosseted) retirement. Hoping to get better, if not the best, from it during 2010.
BTW - have lurked for a while, first post, but very impressed with advice, comments and helpfulless of TP.
Stephen
"Good" keeps changing. There are photos in my holiday album from 2004 that I thought were great at the time. Now, not so much. I still keep them to remind me of the place but if I took them today I wouldn't share them with the world.
zeugma
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I started with my Dad's pre-war (discarded) Exacta 127 Rollfilm (sort-of) SLR.
Sort of, in that it had a mirror (but it wasn't instant return) and no pentaprism (ground glass screen and a fly up hood.)
My results were, frankly, crap.
Then, I bought myself a Praktica LLC 35mm SLR with electrical contacts from body to lens(es) woo-hoo - and got better.
I kept a notebook and recorded useful information I learned (exposure, depth of field, relationship between shutter speed - aperture - film speed etc.)
I learned to take decent well exposed images.
However, as my Dad frequently observed, the equipment won't give you the "seeing eye," i.e. the ability to compose and perceive aesthetics.
That took rather longer.
I'm still learning. 1967-2010, still at it.
so still working on getting some really good shots
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mrtoad
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since 1963
i really didnt understand a lot of technique or got better equipment...slr's...till 1986...i joined an camera club...and got aspirations of greatness which fell flat...
love amateur photography and dont think i will ever be good enough but dont care
i really didnt understand a lot of technique or got better equipment...slr's...till 1986...i joined an camera club...and got aspirations of greatness which fell flat...
love amateur photography and dont think i will ever be good enough but dont care
Jack/Sharon
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had my nikon D60 for about a year and still dont know how to use it. its always on auto
Breaker
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First digital camera in 2001, first DSLR in 2004.
I think it was about four years before I started getting pictures that were intentionally good - about 1 picture every 1000
. I'm not including portrait shots in that, just shots that suited what I liked to think of my 'style'. Now I pretty much know what I'm taking and how it's going to look before I hit the shutter, so I take less and get more keepers. About 1 in every 400. So I'm improving .
I think it was about four years before I started getting pictures that were intentionally good - about 1 picture every 1000
. I'm not including portrait shots in that, just shots that suited what I liked to think of my 'style'. Now I pretty much know what I'm taking and how it's going to look before I hit the shutter, so I take less and get more keepers. About 1 in every 400. So I'm improving .
webbEvents
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First SLR in 1976, Pentax MX, with "kit" 50mm f1.8. Sold all my film Minolta 500i gear and went digital with a Minolta 5Hi @ around £1100!!!! 5mp bridge camera. Won a magazine photo comp with it which was a place on a course with Peak Photograph. Everyone else had digi SLR's (10d's mainly) Got to play with Simon Watkinsons 1Ds Mk1 and promptly went home and sold my race rep motor bike and bought a new 20d, 17-40L, flash, tripod etc. Upgraded on the way to my current 5d Mk2 which I love to bits..
I'm hoping that some of my stuff is up to scratch by now
, but there are always some that don't quite pass muster. We are always learning.
Webby
I'm hoping that some of my stuff is up to scratch by now
, but there are always some that don't quite pass muster. We are always learning.Webby
Had a "gifted" minolta dynax slr from my folks late 80's never really used it
had a gifted olympus compact digital, which i took "snaps" with
then just over 3 years ago bought my 400D for motorsport (WRC rallies, track days etc) and really got the bug.
unfortunately i was never really creative and missed hundreds of "opportunities" to use it on holidays in Europe
Now, thanks to a rekindled interest, and the wealth of fantastic info on t'internet, i've been absorbing as much as i can possibly read (up til 3am a lot of nights) and really am hooked!!
friends have asked me to take pictures for them, i wander about on my own, and i dream of photography and the peacefulness of it all.
only recently, say within the last year, do i think myself better than a "snapper" and i hope to continue progressing for ever...
i'm a strong believer of you get out, what you put in (aside from some peoples natural talent of course), and now i have a reasonable amount of kit, i have no real excuse!!
had a gifted olympus compact digital, which i took "snaps" with
then just over 3 years ago bought my 400D for motorsport (WRC rallies, track days etc) and really got the bug.
unfortunately i was never really creative and missed hundreds of "opportunities" to use it on holidays in Europe
Now, thanks to a rekindled interest, and the wealth of fantastic info on t'internet, i've been absorbing as much as i can possibly read (up til 3am a lot of nights) and really am hooked!!
friends have asked me to take pictures for them, i wander about on my own, and i dream of photography and the peacefulness of it all.
only recently, say within the last year, do i think myself better than a "snapper" and i hope to continue progressing for ever...
i'm a strong believer of you get out, what you put in (aside from some peoples natural talent of course), and now i have a reasonable amount of kit, i have no real excuse!!