[ftpaddict]

You'll enjoy it if you do.

I'll make a mental note to watch it, then.

[Mike Cash]

"your sync speed is limited at 180"

OK, here's a question, why does the camera only allow a sync speed of 180. To get a unblurred picture don't you need to have a shutter speed of 250 or higher?

When using flash the duration of the flash output becomes your effective shutter speed, so in most cases you're actually getting a much higher speed than 1/180.

By way of extreme example:

Imagine shooting a photo in a pitch black room with the shutter speed set for one second (just for instance). The flash pulse will be 1/x000 second duration....fast enough to freeze action. Whatever motion transpired during the remainder of the time the shutter is open would be irrelevant, as they aren't being illuminated for that period of time and hence won't show up on the exposure anyway.

In daylight fill flash you're looking at something a bit different because you're adding only just a touch of light to the subject and other objects sufficiently well-lit to show up in the photo can be subject to camera/motion blur due to slowish shutter speeds. In such cases you can have both frozen motion and motion blur in the same shot, as in this photo.

[Mike Cash]

Let me just say that I don't really mean to disparage all Republicans with statements like this, half my friends are Republicans, I just want to get across how much FOX NEWS SUCKS.

Nothing like illustrating absurdity with absurdity

Now that we all agree on that, please carry on.

I've never seen Fox News in my life. May I be excused from agreeing or disagreeing?

[pingflood]

I've never seen Fox News in my life. May I be excused from agreeing or disagreeing?

You may be congratulated.

[Canada_Rockies]

Hi everyone,

Well, once again I'm seriously disappointed with my K20d. This past weekend I was out at a good-bye party for a friend of mine who is moving to Korea. Well, I brought my k20d along for the ride and sure enough there was another gentleman there shooting with a Nikon d80. He was shoting with a flash gun. I was completely amazed by the photos he was getting out of his camera versus my k20d. What was even more shocking was getting his shots with the KIT LENS. That floored me. I had to shoot with my DA 50-135 just to get anywhere close to his shots. I think I may have made a bad investment in the k20d.

Here's some examples.

Frankly, I prefer the exposures you obtained with your camera to the Nikon with the sole exception of the last example where the Nikon combined the flash and available light perfectly. The Nikon exposures appear to be darker than I would personally aim for. I much prefer your lighter exposures.

[Robert S Donovan]

I'm betting if the OP had shot his K20 in Green mode with the kit lens his shots would have turned out just as blah as his buddy's Nikon's shots.

[Mike Cash]

I'm betting if the OP had shot his K20 in Green mode with the kit lens his shots would have turned out just as blah as his buddy's Nikon's shots.

I doubt it. His buddy paid better attention to his backgrounds.

[snappy]

This thread has reminded me of the time I started to like photography. I'm a self-taught in photography 15 years ago and not like this, back then it wasn't much of resource or info around. It was very frustrated but also fun to learn from a lot mistakes I made, but that how I got better and better over the time.

[mathewhayden]

Hello..
I am new in this photography field. I am just confused between Nikon and Canon because I have already worked with both of these camera and for me these both are good. I think both have good resolutions and quality so it is difficult to choose one.

[Parallax]

I doubt it. His buddy paid better attention to his backgrounds.

And has a better understanding of the nuances of focus points and depth of field.

I have to get off this of my chest. Due to me linguistic incapability I read the following sentence...

if my soon-to-be daughter is going to have a bright future.

as..." if my son-to-be-daughter is going.....".

I have a friend that uses Canon and doesnt have these type of mystakes. I think that I am going to move to Canon.


PS Hey, Hey I only posted this to relax the thread a little bit. It is not my intention to insinuate anything about the sexual plans of your soon to be daughter.

[JonPB]

I haven't had much luck getting the correct exposures with my k20d and it gets frustrating when I try to take pictures out of Auto mode and get either over exposed or under exposed shots.

Personally, I've found Auto mode to be quite a useful teacher. Take a photo in fully automatic mode then look at what the camera decided to do. If you think any of the settings should be different, try your preferred settings and see how the image changes. Review and compare. After a while, you'll learn how to anticipate the camera--and later to improve upon the camera. That said, I know nothing about flash photography, so maybe this doesn't apply.

Sometimes, though, there's no substitute for automation. Things change too quickly for the photographer to think them through. There's no shame in using automatic features.

Specific feedback: you were shooting at f/2.8, while your friend was shooting with an f/3.5-5.6 lens. His larger DOF probably helped him achieve "better" focus. I'm not sure yours were out of focus more than that the DOF was too thin.

Hope you're enjoying your camera more now. Cheers!

[Andi Lo]

This thread is necroed by the mistitling and we get comments for months old posts...

[nostatic]

looks fade quickly but cluelessness can last forever

[dylansalt]

I can definitely say that the K20D and the lens you are using are more than up to the task of giving you brilliant results and you will have to definitely spend time with your equipment and practice, practice and more practice.

Pics above have shown what can be achieved and the ones below were just taken with a "kit" lens with onboard flash (and these were not heavily worked or lucks - just p&s)





Most members here haven't spent thousands on photographic courses but most of us have a common element- it's called "passion" which without we wouldn't have spent the years & years in honing our technique.

I wish you all the best in your future photographic endeavors

Regards

Dylan