Buying a better camera does not mean you will get better pictures.

sevencrossing

I try to avoid noise from high ISO's and when doing video work and comparing noise from a D7000 to the D3200 its night and day. Keep in mind, this is in a night club or venue with red lights and or low light conditions.

Sorry Photophun, I thought we were talking about stills of sheep, cows and trees
I have no knowledge of video

Rx4Photo

What you want, Photophun, is to have as much 2nd nature technique to occur for you as possible. It will take time to get there as it can be a daunting task. For example, walking into a situation you initially assess the light, intensity, direction, quality, your mind goes to ISO, aperture. Where do I position myself? Subject moving or still - shutter speed. Background - want it in or out of fucus, aperture. Will shadows screw up my exposure? Subject backlit - spot metering or flash pop. Can I prop myself up against a wall or fence for stability? Will I look ridiculous if I get the shot from the floor...who cares? etc, etc.

So getting yourself into various situations will train your mind to think better and faster with regard to what your camera settings should be. Your fingers will start to move as you think and position yourself. You might be amazed at the images you start to come home with.

To answer your initial question I jumped from my D7000 to a D800 after a couple of years primarily because I initially got the D7K instead of a D700 because the D7K was new tech. I soon realized that I did indeed want a full frame camera and eventually got the D800.

tc88

What you want, Photophun, is to have as much 2nd nature technique to occur for you as possible. It will take time to get there as it can be a daunting task. For example, walking into a situation you initially assess the light, intensity, direction, quality, your mind goes to ISO, aperture. Where do I position myself? Subject moving or still - shutter speed. Background - want it in or out of fucus, aperture. Will shadows screw up my exposure? Subject backlit - spot metering or flash pop. Can I prop myself up against a wall or fence for stability? Will I look ridiculous if I get the shot from the floor...who cares? etc, etc.

So getting yourself into various situations will train your mind to think better and faster with regard to what your camera settings should be. Your fingers will start to move as you think and position yourself. You might be amazed at the images you start to come home with.

+1. Rx4Photo, you summarized some common attributes of good photographers very well.

Photophun

@sevencrossing That was video but also in stills. I may just not like the look of distortion and have a low threshold for it and or be a newbie pixel peeper. Cant stand it when the shading gets noisy and then with the noise reduction you loose detail smoothing it out. When I compare the ISO400 photos of my camera to other peoples mine have very little detail and the distortion is very noticeable and chunky. Mind you that was in the extreme of night clubs. I have left my iso at 200 by accident a few times shooting in the daytime and halfway through reset it back to 100. When I get to editing the photos I usually trash the shots at the higher ISO due to the noise and lack of detail. In the end the less processing a photo needs the better and I am still learning on what distortion is bad vs what is artsy.

I have been doing loads of B&H video tutorials and found them very informative and keep coming back to some of the more intensive ones on controlling light and or composition. Maybe a nice dry text book will help but I think its just learning what to be aware of and going out there and shooting in M mode as much as possible while reviewing the settings each time I start shooting. We all know what "assume" stands for. LOL

I like the one comment earlier in the thread about using the exposure meter as a guide only and then using your own judgement on where you want your exposure to be. Thanks to who ever said that as thats my next project to play around with. Currently I am on contract for a company and working up in Vernon BC for a month or two so I have loads of free time to experiment. Its also a great learning curve to revisit locations and work them with different lighting conditions.

sevencrossing

Photo Fun
going back to your original question
Buying a better camera does not mean you will get better pictures

If by better pictures, you mean less noise
the answer is yes, a better camera would mean you will get better pictures
you would get less noise with FX eg a D800 or D4
using something like the 24 f 1.4 on a FX camera would certainly help
but in a dark night club it wont eliminate noise
and D4 plus a 24 1.4 comes at a price

Msmoto

Exposure meters only tell us the amount of light present. What we do with the light is up to us. Sometimes one may wish to over or under expose. An example, from years ago. Shooting transparency material, in open shade, the light difference from sunlight is about three f/stops. Yet is one shoots at that exposure it does not look realistic. Shooting at 2 f/stops more open than sunlight gives a slight underexposure of the subject in the shade, yet looks very realistic and like someone standing in the shade.

MikeGunter

Hi,

An exposure meter, FWIW, can help develop budding photographers understand what a stop is, if that matters any more.

It could also help to aid in understand the relationship between ambient light and flash, and heaven forbid, ratios, if one wants to read up on such things.

Someone dedicated to their hobby or craft could understand EV (exposure values) in terms of ISOs and their relationships to shutter speeds/f-stops in read outs on most dials or digital displays, and even approximate foot candles - which comes in handy, occasionally.

While everyone knows that each stop is a doubling or halving of light, and ISOs, too, how much is that light quantitatively measured? The human eye will always fool you.

My best,

Mike

sevencrossing

Re exposure meters I have started a new thread ( hope that is OK )
http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/742/do-you-should-you-use-a-separate-exposure-meter-#Item_1