D5100 First Day Review

So, yesterday, after what felt like decades of waiting (even though it was actually less than a week), I finally got my new(-ish) Nikon D5100 in the mail that I ordered from B & H Photo Video. My first impression of the camera was that it was fairly similar to the Nikon D3300 that I was accustomed to shooting with, despite the obvious differences. Many of the functions seemed to be the same, and I had no trouble at all understanding how to operate the D5100 right after I pulled it out of the box.

In the video here, you can see my first thoughts on the D5100 after pulling it out of the box. Then, later last night, after I charged the battery and messed with the camera a little bit, I recorded the video below.

And then, below the video here, you can see some of the photos I've taken with the camera over the last twenty-four hours or so (not quite twenty four.). 

I have enjoyed the camera so far, and haven't really found any big problems with it, but I'll update with a new article possibly in the next few days to tell you about my further experiences with the camera.

Portraiture Advice From A Beginner

Portraiture From a Beginner

Mr. Smith, Greater Johnstown Senior High School Principle

To a young photographer with little to no experience, portraiture can be a very daunting experience to try.

A portrait is any photograph where your subject is a person, although normally, a portrait is more of a posed photo instead of the more candid ones.

This photo here is of my niece, Aria, when we went for a hike one day in the woods near her aunt's house.

The reason portraiture is a little scary to most new photographers is because it can seem so formal, like something that only professionals can really do, but in reality, that's not true. Every time you lift you camera and take a picture of another person, you are taking a portrait.

My brother, Melvin, and his daughter, Arial. 

To take a portrait, you don't necessarily have to bring your subject into a studio and spend twenty minutes getting a perfect pose out of them. Just try to capture their personality in your photos. That's really the ultimate goal of any portrait photographer, to just capture the personality of their subject and tell a story about the person with a photo.

When you're taking a photo of someone, do your best to make them feel comfortable. If they're nervous about being in front of the camera, you won't capture an authentic vision of who they are, because everyone acts different whenever they're in front of a camera. 

Make your subject forget that the camera is there. Make them think you're just a normal person-one of their friends even, and that's how you get the most genuine depiction of who a person truly is. 

Nikon D3300 Review

Now, I know this review is probably more than a little late, considering that the D3300 has been out for a long while now, and has technically been replace by the D3400, but I still want to write this, because I want to give my opinion on the camera as a teenage amateur photographer.

Now, my school’s journalism department owns the Nikon D3300 with the 18-55mm kit lens, and we also have a collection of older Nikkor lenses that belong to film SLR cameras, but due to Nikon’s choice to keep their lens mount the same, the lenses still work with the D3300-albeit only on manual exposure mode and with no auto focus.

The camera performs fairly well with the kit lens, and it offers a nice little range, from a wide angle to a short telephoto, and works for everything from landscapes to portraits, although it’s not the sharpest lens available.

Nikon D3300 with 18-55mm kit lens.

The camera focuses fairly quickly, but not in like a split-second time, like some other cameras are supposedly able to do.

The camera is fairly easy to use, and I was able to learn the basic, and even some of the more advance controls, in about a week or two, and then I quickly learned how to operate the rest of the camera, to the point where I am now able to use the camera in whatever shooting mode the situation requires, including full manual mode.

Shot In Manual Mode with The Nikon D3300 and 18-55MM Kit lens

With five frames per second continuous shooting, the camera works fairly well in situations where I want to catch a lot of photos in a short amount of time, which isn't very often.

With an Iso range of one hundred to twenty five thousand and six hundred, the D3300 performs fairly well in low light, although the higher ISO's definitely introduce their fair share of noise to your photos, so I recommend shooting at the lowest ISO possible and changing your other settings accordingly.

The D3300 does include a live view mode, although I rarely use it due to several reasons: It lacks and adjustable screen, so even when shooting in live view, the camera needs to be directly in front of you in order for you to see exactly what you are shooting. Also, the focus in live view is not very great, and is much slower than the focus when using the viewfinder to frame your subject.

Overall, the D3300 is a good camera for beginners such as myself, although I wouldn't recommend it to more experienced/professional photographers.