Why Are We Here And What Are We Doing This For ?

[Moire]

From an article I read "Stop Taking Pictures And Start Taking Photos".

https://medium.com/the-mission/stop-taking-pictures-start-taking-photos-9039ca99e1d6

"Photography Is no longer fun for me", too many equipment settings, too much time required for processing (I realize some is required), too many unusable photos to sort through.

Some questions along this very same line as that article.

1. Purchasing the right equipment, for the best results without the fuss, high percentage of usable photos. I do not want to take hundreds of photos, take several really good ones and have them all come out clean and usable! Maybe a camera outfit that has 7-12 custom memory settings for "Flowers", "Landscapes", Birds" and "Wildlife" so i am not spending time with the camera settings in the field.) Maybe just 1 lens, 2 at the most.

2. What software to use for post processing, something that has many basic, predetermined adjustments. Like for instance, have 10 common predetermined different landscape settings. I do not want to deal with individual settings, cant do it.

I am not asking for advice on presenting a feeling into my photos, I need to do that myself.  

Photoshop is just to complicated, DPP is too small to use from my tv (no way to enlarge the print and such) 

I take landscape, flowers and wildlife photos, that's all. It may require hiking in for long distances and i want to simplify the use of the equipment and the process to

"make it fun again". 

thanks

[Moire]

OK, the software part of my request is completed. after trying a few free trials of "perfectly clear" and "on1" i found the the interface was not usable on my 50" tv which is where I have to work from.

I was able to increase the user interface in "elements 11" and now finally "adobe camera raw" so I can see the text and sliders on my 50" monitor.

last part, which camera  will give me the least amount of grief and the best results for all my needs. 

do not need preset scenes in the camera camera, i will apply those later from raw.

1. a really good auto focus system both in live view and viewfinder for flying birds

2. fast high burst rate (10+)

3. easy to hold like an slr

4. 18-300 lens "one lens for all my needs" landscape, wildlife, flowers, birds.

5. most advanced image stabilization (5 axis?) for super sharp on the fly action shots like flying birds.

thanks for you help and suggestions

and i want my cake and eat it too

[kvbarkley]

300mm is not long enough for birds.

[Moire]

yes i agree, but all my best photos of birds, wildlife and flowers are taken while hiking. come around corner all quiet like and there in the tree a harrier, bamm. so i need a system that is already locked and loaded ready to go. 

I want to be able to save the settings in the camera to 5 memory selections and be able to eaiseily select them on the fly.  with settings like sutter speed, af type, shutter type, iso and all the other things i would normally take time to set. 

ya know it really sucks when you have the af set to one shot, focus point set to the center, the shutter set to 500 and a pheasant flys up with no time to go to the right settings, thats what i am trying to solve.

I dont sit for hours in one place, i move around to find what i want.

[Waddizzle]

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@Moire wrote:

OK, the software part of my request is completed. after trying a few free trials of "perfectly clear" and "on1" i found the the interface was not usable on my 50" tv which is where I have to work from.

I was able to increase the user interface in "elements 11" and now finally "adobe camera raw" so I can see the text and sliders on my 50" monitor.

last part, which camera  will give me the least amount of grief and the best results for all my needs. 

do not need preset scenes in the camera camera, i will apply those later from raw.

1. a really good auto focus system both in live view and viewfinder for flying birds

2. fast high burst rate (10+)

3. easy to hold like an slr

4. 18-300 lens "one lens for all my needs" landscape, wildlife, flowers, birds.

5. most advanced image stabilization (5 axis?) for super sharp on the fly action shots like flying birds.

thanks for you help and suggestions

and i want my cake and eat it too

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Yeah, you do want to have your cake and eat it, too.

1. A single focus system for viewfinder shooting or LCD screen shooting does not exist in a DSLR.  
2. If you want a frame rate that high, then you want one of the recent releases of 1D series camera body.
3. I have no idea what ‘easy to hold like an slr” even means.
4. I think Tamron has an EF-S mount 18-400mm, which means it would not mount on a 1D series camera body.
5. IBIS won’t cure that, and would only make it seem worse.  Try practicing tracking BIF, and using a faster shutter speed.   

Enjoy.

[Escalante101]

No easy answers, continued.  At this point in the technological history of the human race, if you are "serious" about photography, you will have to contend with complex and sometimes heavy cameras, a variety of lenses, solid tripod gear, and some flash / lighting equipment.  Concerning bird photography, there is a somewhat affordable lens on the market, the Tamron 150-600mm.  Supertelephoto lenses manufactured by the major players (Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc.) are unaffordable for the vast majority of people.

I have settled for the mid-point DSLR cameras (less than perfect, but okay) affordable lenses and flash / light equipment / studio gear.  I have a good photography library.  I accept that if I want to expose / post-process an image and save it on my computer and perhaps share it with a few family members and friends, that achieving that goal is not going to be a "walk in the park".  

Since I enjoy capturing landscape images, I susbcribed to the Dave Morrow Photography website.  Among his offerings is a package for photo editing for landcape and outdoor photography.  That series of video tutorials along with Adobe's user manuals for Lightroom, Bridge and Photoshop are what I am presently working with to tackle the daunting task of learning post processing.  Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Suite is the "gold standard" in post processing.  No matter how intimidating it may be, I intend to "stick with it" and learn how to use it to my advantage.  I have followed Dave Morrow's organizational and editing procedures.  If I want to "keep it simple", I can import my images into Lightroom, move them into Bridge and finally open them in Adobe Camera Raw and do my "global" adjustments there.  If the image would require additional refining, I could then opt to open it into Photoshop and create layer masks to edit specific portions of the image, etc.  Finally, I can sharpen the image and save it back to a folder where I save my final images.  Just to be able to use Adobe Camera Raw and do some basic adjustments is sometimes enough just to give a picture that "extra oomph" that it needs.

So, it would be nice if the human race were more advanced in the engineering / design / production of photography gear, but we are where we are. 

Just look back at the history of photography.  What kind of complicated, heavy gear did Ansel Adams and Edward Weston have to carry around?  How did they "develop" their images from a "huge" large format negative?  How about the need for a "dark room", toxic chemicals, ideal temperatures, etc.  How many years has it taken to get from there to the present?

Therefore, I accept where we are.  I will never live to see truly featherweight cameras, "nano" lenses, etc.  I work with what I have.  So, we may all be dealing with frustrations and impatience, wishing for something better - faster than it can even be "imagined" let alone designed and engineered.

So, we can be impatient and frustrated or we can work with what we have and look to the past to what our photography predecessors had to endure to produce the images they did.  What if they were impatient?  Look at some of the early photography masters work - even before color, and think about what they tolerated because they wanted a great photograph.  Then think about where we are in the year 2019, and look what we can do now . . .

[Moire]

Great info, i will ck it out

[Moire]

suggestions for a camera outfit that has the features I need?

suggestions for a way to bring back the fun in photography?

suggestions on how to get great photos with limited computer work?

Man you folks are real hard to deal with, not fun at all.

[RobertTheFat]

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@Moire wrote:

suggestions for a camera outfit that has the features I need?

suggestions for a way to bring back the fun in photography?

suggestions on how to get great photos with limited computer work?

Man you folks are real hard to deal with, not fun at all.

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Then please feel free to go elsewhere and try to find some folks who are.

[dbhuff49]

Morie, I agree "Photography Is no longer fun for me", too many equipment settings, too much time required for processing (I realize some is required), too many unusable photos to sort through."

I used to be an amateur photographer. Got out out of it for several years, but enjoy photography so much I wanted to get back into it. I'm retired and thought it would be a fun hobby. I bought a Cannon sx60. BTW Great camera! But this digital world we live in makes photography a lot of work. Post processing software sucks. No longer fun!

[John_SD]

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@dbhuff49 wrote:
 But this digital world we live in makes photography a lot of work. Post processing software sucks. No longer fun!

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Your underlying message is loud and clear. Photography is not for you. Better that you realize this before you sink a lot of money into gear that will only collect dust.