Is It Me?

[pmillage]

Good Day All, brand new to the DSLR world and am wondering if its possible to take good, sharp shots with kit lenses or do I have to spend big bucks. Just bought a Nikon D300S and my pics certainly lack vibrancy and excellent focus. Sincerely hoping my Proud Photography course helps !!.....cheers !

[BigVinnie]

You have to learn the lens. Start by reading some of the reviews of the lens you have.

Most lenses have a sweet spot. Zooms behave differently at different focal lengths and at different apertures. Find out where yours performs the best and work with it.

Where most kit lenses fail is at the widest settings and large apertures.

I have a Canon XSi, nothing special. The lens I bought with it is a 17-85mm EF-S IS. Anything wider than 24mm the lens is too soft for my taste. The 50-80 range is pretty darn good. Now that I've had it for a while I can go back and look at what ranges I actually used the most and invest in good, sharp primes. Mostly so I can use wider apertures.

[junglebear]

A lot of cameras do minimal sharpening in-camera, most of the time you need to sharpen your shots up a bit in post - Unsharp Mask is your friend.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by pmillage

excellent focus

That's more you than the camera.

[gturner]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

That's more you than the camera.

add one to that. You should be able to get excellent images from normal kit if you have your focus on and enough light for the lens and sensor to cope.

[pmillage]

Thanks for the quick replies....most helpful ! This is exactly why I'm taking the course......cheers