AusBonsai

Andrew Legg wrote:My best advice to anyone learning about photography is use a tripod, and understand depth of field.

+1 And use the self timer rather than your finger on the shutter.

There's tricks like macro bellows/reversal rings and mirror lock up for those with SLRs - especially those with full manual mode and

photo.net used to THE place to go for photography. But I'm not taking photography seriously these days (happy snaps only) so YMMV. Google reports 2770 bonsai related posts there.

thoglette wrote:photo.net used to THE place to go for photography

Anyone new to photography needs to also spend some time on the fringes - eg. The Luminous Landscape which has a rather lengthy but well considered article on the previous and current state of the market

I confess I'm a range finder tragic too (good ones make less noise than the eratz shutter noise on an i-thing ) - but through lens focus cameras (SLR or View) reign supreme for macro work.

From a more mainstream perspective dpreview.com is the go-to place for data on current digital cameras.

That was a great weekend, I took both my lens's along, and found that the kit lens was good, but the prime was better... however, as I forgot to take my tripod, a lot of the pics from the prime lens were quite blurred. I did not realise the affect of lifting all those massive bonsai into place would have on my arms, so i was shaking like crazy

However the last hour or so on the last day, I was lucky enough to have another member of the club give me a lesson on photography (he's big on his camera's), so learnt a lot more about manual mode, and even learnt about focus stacking (mind blown), which I tried out on a couple of the show favorites. He lent me his 85mm Micro lense, ring flash, and tripod, which a got some great macro shots with too Am just processing all the pictures, but will be sure to share them

I was one of the floor walkers, so got to see each tree and talk about them with the public, so no chance of missing any

Was great fun, and will probably be joining the local camera club at some point next year I'm hooked

Jason wrote: ..learnt a lot more about manual mode, and even learnt about focus stacking (mind blown)

Ah, couldn't do that with film!

Jason wrote: Was great fun, and will probably be joining the local camera club at some point next year I'm hooked

Like Bonsai, there's nothing like mentors and practice

Great read guys thanks for that info . Ive been trying to work with full manual settings but as noted far to many variables for an amature such as myself. Looking forward to trying some of these tips just have to try and convince the better half why we need some new lenses

Here's my setup. I make sure my subject is a metre or more from the backdrop. 2 lights into umbrellas. I shoot somewhere around f8 so as to make sure it's as sharp as it can possibly be from front to back of subject and and usually shooting from 2 metres or more from my subject. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the results here on this computer.

Sorry, forgot to answer the question. I use a 24-70.

Webos wrote:Here's my setup. I make sure my subject is a metre or more from the backdrop. 2 lights into umbrellas. I shoot somewhere around f8 so as to make sure it's as sharp as it can possibly be from front to back of subject and and usually shooting from 2 metres or more from my subject. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the results here on this computer.

Thanks webos, that setup looks amazing! I don't have the best flash set up, so rely on what natural light I can get and then fix up the shadows in lightroom, but will eventually (hopefully) have a set up just like that