[Snapper_Kev]

Well my D40x finally arrived and to say I was excited is an understatement...

Being a relative begineer to SLR photography I'm on a pretty steep learning curve and the features and functions compared to my old Nikkormat is just amazing... I had no idea technology had advanced so far.

Anyway here are my first few pics.. I have not played round with them at all in Photoshop etc. I have used a cloudy ISO and optimized the Colour to IIIa and saturation to + Enhanced....

I'm sure I'll improve in time but these are my first attempts:





Luckily the mount in the D40 and my old Nikkormat is the same so I can still use my Tefnon 28-200 zoom - all be it in Manual everything Mode...

Probably not the same quality as the Nikon Lens but I'm happy with my first attempt...



Comments and feedback welcome - Just keep in mind I'm a begineer...

Cheers, Kev

[Markulous]

That fishing boat looks as if it's seen better days! Tells a story all of it's own!

You've a tendency to cut off the top of the masts at the expense of showing too much empty foreground water (in which there's little interest) but fairly minor points (oh, and #1 could do with a rotate if you look at the lamposts!)

[Snapper_Kev]

Originally Posted by Markulous

That fishing boat looks as if it's seen better days! Tells a story all of it's own!

You've a tendency to cut off the top of the masts at the expense of showing too much empty foreground water (in which there's little interest) but fairly minor points (oh, and #1 could do with a rotate if you look at the lamposts!)

Just noticed... Thanks... I've heard it's a trap for your players - I'll pay better attention to that next time... Thanks for the feedback

I'd be interested to hear anyones thoughts on exposure and the light meter in the d40x. Personally I thought the pic's are slightly underexposed.. I suppose it's a fine line between underexposing during the shot and playing with shadow / highlight in photoshop later, as against risking over exposure and washing out the hightlights that would then be unrecoverable?
I haven't played with the expourse compensation dial yet but would be interested in others thoughts and experiences with the auto exposure settings on this camera.
I've heard the 40 & 80 both have an inherint bug in the firmware?

[Soupdragon]

Your new camera looks to be working well!

It certainly collects lots of detail.

[Snapper_Kev]

Just made a few tweeks and crops....

[P-E]

Looking good

[fionaB]

great start, as Mark says keep an eye on losing the tops of things. sometimes i know it cant be avoided.
nice pics tho and you will find yourself going from strength to strength once u are comfortable with the camera!

Fi

[Whipspeed]

Tweaked crop is good, nice & sharp and the exposure is good. Keep the mast in next time & it's spot on. Nice having a new toy isn't it !

[GainfulShrimp]

You're off to a good start, Kev. I think you're correct about the reasons behind any slight underexposure - it's generally harder to recover details from highlights than it is shadows, so most clever cameras will err on the side of retaining highlight detail. I don't know about any bugs in Nikon firmware, so can't comment on that.

It's easy to adjust the 'exposure' later during PP though... especially if you're shooting in RAW.

I don't often fiddle with exposure compensation but I probably use it more often than other forms of correcting the AE, such as using spot metering.

[simpbow]

Looks fine wouldnt like to be going to far in that boat.

[jusu]

I agree with others about missing top, otherwise looks good