{"id":1899,"date":"2012-08-27T14:33:10","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T19:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2012-08-27T14:33:10","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T19:33:10","slug":"making-the-camera-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1899","title":{"rendered":"Making the Camera Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"\"\"<\/a>\"\" I hope you\u2019ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture<\/a>\"\" and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting<\/a>\"\". I hope you\u2019ll get copies if you haven\u2019t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com:<\/span><\/span> An Introduction to Photographic Lighting<\/span><\/span><\/a>, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio,<\/a> Getting Started in Commercial Photography<\/a> If you\u2019re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well.<\/span><\/span> I\u2019ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>According to the Word Press program I use to post this blog this is blog number 100! I don\u2019t know if that proves anything other than I can write lengthy note to myself without knowing if anyone reads this thing. So if you look at this blog please send an e-mail<\/a> or something.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I went to Camp Chesterfield here in Indiana yesterday. The camp is a Spiritualist center that began in the nineteenth century, and an interesting place to visit. All images were made with the new Nikon D800.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about my Nikon D800 for the last couple of blogs, but today I want to discuss making a camera your camera. Anytime you get a new piece of equipment you\u2019ll \"\"<\/a>need to learn about how it works, but it is also important to customize the camera to your way of working. I think most of this is quite simple: really just choosing the options you\u2019ll use. For instance when I\u2019m shooting for clients, I usually have the camera set to manual exposure. I evaluate the exposures using the laptop and the LCD which is why I spent time setting up Eye-Fi option I already wrote about. I also set up a couple of custom white balance settings for my \"\"<\/a>strobes. These are things that make the camera work better for me. I also put a thin strap on the camera. I like straps that are about half an inch wide because, while I almost never put the camera around my neck, I do wrap the strap around my hand. When I am hand holding the camera I keep the camera in my right hand. The strap is wrapped three times around my hand, so I can let go of the camera without dropping the camera. I learned this from Nikon School in 1978 and I still like it. I can get the camera to my eye \"\"<\/a>and shoot very quickly. By the way my left hand cradles the lens and braces against my body. This makes it easier to shoot hand held. When I am shooting for my self I\u2019ll generally shoot with aperture priority, so, of course I will be able to find the M and A setting pretty quickly.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There are things I generally don\u2019t use on any camera. My last camera had a microphone for taking notes about your pictures. I never used \"\"<\/a>this on purpose, but I did turn it on by mistake a couple of times. I couldn\u2019t tell you how to actually make it work. I don\u2019t expect I\u2019ll use the in camera editing features of the Nikon D800, so I may never really know how they work. It\u2019s important to remember it\u2019s your camera; it should work as an extension of your vision. If you need to look at the instruction book before every shot you should probably practice with the settings you use most often. If you\u2019re shooting with a DSLR and you keep all the settings on auto all the time you\u2019ve limited your control over the camera and your ability to express your own vision.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ve made modifications on every camera I\u2019ve ever \"\"<\/a>had. Sometimes it\u2019s just the settings, like turning on the lines in the viewfinder. On my Speed Graphic I added extra infinity stops, added a filter to the range finder and changed the lens. For my Mamiya C330 camera I got prism finders, brackets, and built a custom Polaroid camera. I really loved the speed finder on my Nikon F, but it was really built for a Nikon F2. I think that it is important to examine all of the accessories that are available for your camera. While many of them might not help you with your shooting, they may inspire you with new ideas of how to shoot.
\n <\/span><\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I\u2019ve made modifications on every camera I\u2019ve ever had. Sometimes it\u2019s just the settings, like turning on the lines in the viewfinder. On my Speed Graphic I added extra infinity stops, added a filter to the range finder and changed the lens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}