Film

[Stephen Coates]

I will take the films to be developed today.

Does anyone have any recomendations on lenses which I could look into getting which might be better than the one which was included? (I don't yet know how good the included lens is as I havn't had any pictures developed from it)

[Harrison]

The types of lens you buy will all depend on what you wish to take pictures of. Also these days many film SLR lenses are compatible with Digital SLR cameras, so when buying a lens try to get one that is. This way if you eventually upgrade to a digital SLR you will already have lenses you can use. You can also save a lot of money buying second hand lenses, but make sure you can test the lens first before purchase to make sure it works and there are no scratches, distortion or other problems.

As for the actual types of lens. A good all round lens is a must, which has a wide range, so that you don't need to be constantly swapping over lenses when you are out. The lens that came with your camera, with a range of 28-90mm is pretty good for this, so for most general shooting you already have a good lens.

The lens you may wish to buy is a macro lens if you are likely to be taking close up shots. But you will need to study the lenses on offer to see how much distortion they produce. With a macro it can introduce fish eye distortion into the lens, and the final images it produces. Most Macro lenses have the field of view in degrees on them, so you can work this out easily. Obviously a lens with a 180 degree FOV is the extreme and will give distortion that will look like those traffic mirrors you often see on difficult corners on the road, but they do allow you to take some great wide angle shots of small enclosed areas such as rooms.

The other type of lens to consider is a zoom lens that is quite powerful for long distance shots. Something with a maximum of 300mm will offer great zooming abilities, but will be bigger and heavier than a standard lens.

The other thing you may want to consider is a lens with stabilisation built in, especially one with a long range as the further you are zooming the more small camera movements will effect the final image. These however can get expensive, especially when optical stabilisation is used.

But saying that, all lenses are expensive, but as I already mentioned second hand lenses are worth looking at as you can save a lot of money. And if you find a good small camera shop (not a chain like Jessops, but a self run shop) the owners are normally very helpful and knowledgeable and can quickly recommend a compatible lens for your camera for the type of photographs you wish to take.

Personally I would say your current lens is good enough for most shootings, and recommend at most you first buy a macro lens, and also if you don't have one, get a tripod as they are very useful. Even a mono-pod is better than nothing.

For the next camera I get, I'm seriously considering a Nikon Digital SLR, such as the D80, as one of the lenses available is a Nikon 18-200 AS-R VR lens and that focal length range is equivalent to a 27-300mm lens in 35mm film format, which is an amazing range for all but macro photography. It also has some amazing VR stabilisation technology built in that allows you to take perfectly still shots even when taken from a travelling vehicle. It does however come at a price. £489. But they don't drop in price second hand so you do get your money back if you later wish to sell it on.

[Stephen Coates]

Thanks for the information about lenses. I'll stick with the one I have for now, but I will probably get a macro one sometime in the future.

I got my first photos back which I took with the camera. You can see a selection of them here: http://emaculation.com/steve/photos/
Opinions on the website design are also welcome.

[Harrison]

Interesting website idea, to use written text. Definitely gives it a personal feel.

I like the red sky image. Very nice. Quite cool fireworks pictures too. You wouldn't instantly realise they were either and work quite well as abstract art. It is just a shame you didn't get the whole of the firework in the top image as they was definitely the best one.

[Tiago]

Cool that written text,
it is a cool idea for people like me that dont know html....just write and scan...

[Stephen Coates]

I like the red sky image. Very nice. Quite cool fireworks pictures too. You wouldn't instantly realise they were either and work quite well as abstract art. It is just a shame you didn't get the whole of the firework in the top image as they was definitely the best one.

I did get quite a few more photos but I thought hat they were the best ones. They are definately better than the ones I took a few years ago, but this time I had the luxury of a 'bulb' setting on the camera. I agree that they look good as abstract.

The sky often looks quite nice out of my bedroom window so I have taken quite a few photos of it (both on film and digital).

Cool that written text,
it is a cool idea for people like me that dont know html....just write and scan...

I was getting bored of all this Web 2 stuff, and I don't have a clue when it comes to CSS, and everyone else seems to be getting bored of plain HTML stuff, so I thought I'd go for an idea which I hadn't seen before. I made the site using a few simple tables in Netscape Composer and most of the pictures where set as backgrounds in the cells, but they could have just been set as pictures.

[Harrison]

It is actually a very well explored idea in design circles. Traditionally typography has been quite formal and restricted to rules that date back to print based type setting. This still generally applies today even online. But an area of design that explores experimenting more with text has been around since the 1960's and is called Text Deconstruction.

And you have basically started to explore this by the way you've created your website.