WTB Digital SLR need input from owners/enthusiasts

Thanks to everyone who gave their input, I decided to go with the 400D in the end. I do now wish I had waited and perhaps opted for the 40D or waited longer and gone with the 5D but neither of these cameras would make me a better photographer so...i`ll just buy some lenses and keep practicing.

my deviantART gallery has some of the pictures i`ve taken in the month i`ve had it. http://dr1983.deviantart.com/gallery/

 

The larger robust frame really, Spot metering, faster consecutive shooting speed. live view could be handy occasionally.

 

Awesome photo's mate, I don't think you would need to upgrade any further than what you already have, I couldn't get pics as good as most of those with spending a day on each photo... *sobs*

 

Thanks for the kind words. But I started out with image manipulation then moved onto photography so I had the photoshop background to quickly work on the photos. The original shots arent nearly half as good before manipulation i mean hue/saturation/colour balance/curves/levels etc.

When I was asking for advice people were saying get the basics down and then you`ll see what you actually need in the way of a camera and lenses, It is great advice as only now after using it for a bit I know what accessories and other lenses i`ll need.

 

Photoshop magic aside, those photographs are just composed very well.

 

Nice photos. I've had a 30D for almost a year now. I'd say I have about 10 pictures worth showing off. Then again, of the 6000 I've taken, about 5800 of them are of my son. I would go exploring the town when my wife is gone, but she always takes the camera.

How much of your b&w images are Photoshop post production?

 

awesome shots!

we should have an official show off your artwork thread...

 

They were mostly shot RAW so i mean they all did have the colour information which is in my opinion the best way to shoot any shot you plan to be B&W just in case. I have been lightening the highlights and darkening the shadows where needed to add the film B&W look, also a little sharpening.

 

I save in RAW as well... not sure how useful that is since only a fraction of the pictures are really viewed a lot, but as they're shots of the kid, my wife will cut my balls off if I delete them. I've had to build a small Linux machine as a RAID1 file server.

Do you generally desaturate the picture and then adjust the levels to get your desired B&W effect?

 

lol yeah i can imagine, RAW certainly does eat memory.

my process goes like this; I desaturate the image, convert to lab mode, duplicate the layer, use a high pass filter that just leaves the outlines raised, I then set that layer to soft light. I then add a curves adjustment layer and make the shadows darker and the highlights lighter and generally adjust the midtones. I then merge the layers when i`m satisfied with the B&W effect and convert back to RGB.

I hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info as well.

I must admit, have never used soft light, just followed your steps with a photo of Toda Erika, and the results were great, will definitely use them again when I do B&W work.

 

i`m glad it helped. It really does give a more accurate B&W conversion than the desaturation.

 

I don't really do too many special effects with my images. Now, I'm more or less trying to learn how to get the good shots. I'm half decent at Photoshop (ever seen an A1 arcade poster scanned?) so I'll worry about that later.

A couple of these came out good, but I had to shrink them to fit:
Sakura
http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2123

Snow
http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2048

 

I really like some of the snow shots, but you`re right concentrating on getting a great shot is much more important than trying to save a bad picture in photoshop.

 

The snow shots were taken with my Canon pocket camera I'm now remembering. Well, some of them were (the first batch). I was too afraid to take my DSLR out in the snow. Don't you love how Japanese people, no matter how hard they try, can't make a normal snowman? It has to be a cat, or a racoon or something.