Got the D3300 last night. I took a few pics, but I still have no idea what I'm doing. 
I'll try to get them up later on.
I've also seen adapters like this for my dad's stuff:
I've read that I'll lose all auto control, which is understandable, and it will only work for macro shooting. Is this something I should even bother with? I figure these might come in handy when shooting stationary stuff on a tripod.
Nice. I'm still happy with my D3300 after a few months. I'm surprised at how much I use 18 on the 18-55 lense. I've considered a Cannon adapter, but I doubt it would be worth it for my 50 and 70-210. My next purchase will be the 35 prime.
I've had my Rebel T2i along with 18-55/75-300 lenses for a couple years now, and while it's been great, I've been thinking of switching up to something newer. I'll be curious to see what you think about your D3300.
That adapter, with the glass element in it, should allow you to keep infinity focus. Canon had 2 adapters when they transitioned from the FD mount to the EF mount.
One was just a physical mount adapter that lost infinity focus. Could be used on any lens.
The other had an optical element in it, to fix the focus distance difference between the FD and EF mounts. It ended up providing a 1.2x increase in the focal length of the lens (300mm ->360mm), and preserved infinity focus. Kinda like a teleconverter/extender. It was only useful for the expensive telephoto lenses.
What lenses does your dad have? That would determine whether it is worth it to get the converter or not. Canon had good glass for the FD mount. $35 is not a lot to be able to fool around with your dad's lenses, if there is something that you could work with.
And nice choice on the D3300. I'm a Canon guy myself, but since you have some access to a selection of Nikon glass, you made a good choice.
Edit: Just looking a little more into these adapters. The Fotodiox you linked seems to be better than most of the adapters out there, short of Canon's expensive and rare FD to EOS adapter. Just an FYI. Canon FD lenses lost a lot of their resale value because of the mount change. You can get some VERY good telephoto glass in the FD mount.
So, I took some "I have no idea what I'm doing" pics, most are of my dog Holly:
My living room "Metal Shrine":
Flash on:
Flash off:
Doing her best "Spongegar Meme" impression:
Her at mid-complaint (a little blurry):
Her getting real tired of being the subject of pictures:
Also of interest, I transferred these from the camera to my phone via the wireless adapter the camera came with. That is berking cool! You can also control the camera with it and take remote shots. These shots are not in full resolution, because I chose to downsize them a bit to save space when I transferred them. Not terrible for just messing around, but I have a LONG way to go.
Looks like the built-in, on-camera flash? IMHO that's pretty much only useful as a last-resort for filling in harsh shadows, not as a primary light source.
If you want to try out "grassroots" flash lighting, I highly recommend this site:
Set the flash to slow rear when indoors and try again. Trust me. 
So if this thread has kind of run it's course, my I jack it? (lol)
My mom has an old Pentax K1000 with 3(?) different lenses that I can use. I was thinking about getting a newer Pentax (just a body or maybe with an auto-focus lens). I was coming up with Pentax K-S1 or a K-50 (both on amazon for roughly $3-350). Anyone have an opinion? I know nothing about photography but some passing knowledge and a want better pictures than my Samsung S6 can give me (although it's pretty good). My problem sounds similar to other hobbyist: 99% of the time you reach for the camera phone.
In reply to RossD:
I looked at both of those, and I really liked the K-50. It's a normal size (the K-S1 is smaller) and it is weather sealed. Also, they sell a white one that is the hotness. Only downside I could see was the battery life. I think it's only rated for around 400 shots, so get a few spare batteries. It has pretty good specs otherwise.
I'd just like to add for shooting motorsports, don't worry about chainlink fences at all - put camera on manual focus and shoot through them, they won't affect the shot assuming you have your aperature more open and not stopped down so the DOF is on the track where it belongs. Just need to time your rhythm so you shoot between any supports, because those are what will mess up shots.
Generally the highest shutter speed you want to ever be at will be around 1/250 or so, go as low as you can possibly go to get good shots, probably no lower than 1/80 or so, depending on how good you are with panning.
And in using a 4/3 system, these are the notes I took from the 50th 24 Hours of Daytona in 2012:
A. Infield Carosel 1, entry: 50mm & 135mm
B. Infield Carosel 1, exit: 135mm & 180mm
C. Infield Carosel 1 exit to before gator: 50mm, 135mm, & 180mm
D. Gator: 135mm
E. Infield Carosel 2 exit: 135mm & 180mm
F. End of straight after infield carosel 2: 50mm, 135mm, 180mm
G. Banking after infield exit: 135mm, 180mm, 300mm
The lenses I had with me were 24mm, 50mm, 135mm, 180mm, 300mm, and 500mm OM Zuiko 35mm film lenses.
Keep in mind 4/3 is 2x FOV factor compared to 35mm, so double to get equivalent 35mm full frame focal length lense range to use, then factor down for whatever sensor size you are using. Basically looking at 100mm-500mm 35mm equivalent lens range for most on track use, and a 300mm-400mm 35mm equivalent prime would be a sweet spot if you are looking for a single lense that would be worth it for motorsports (due to funds.)
And needing high FPS to shoot motorsports is not a necessity. It can be done well with manual focus, manual stop lenses in one shot-one kill mode...just takes more effort.
All manual and prime is how I like to shoot, no matter what:
Took some more pics last Friday night using the D3300 for a story on a local cruise night. So far, I love this thing. I used Auto Mode in JPEG format (I know, I know...) but just having a real viewfinder to make shot framing easy made this purchase worth it. My old point and shoot had one, but it was basically a LCD screen in the viewfinder with terrible resolution. I took everything with the factory kit 18-55mm lens. I know a lot of the pics are with me standing up, but the place was crowded in a lot of areas so crouching was not gonna happen.
No, this was not my Trans Am. It was far too nice!
Now here's a couple shots to compare. The sun was getting lower in the sky, so I got one with the sun in the frame and one without.
With:
Without:
I like the way the one with the sun in the frame came out.
But wait... THERE'S MORE!
I like this interior shot.
LOVE this shot. It's from a vehicle familiar to everyone here...
Mazdax605's Delica Star Wagon Turbo-D 4x4!
I like the chaos of this shot, along with the indifferent lady just sitting in front:
Close ups of decals and emblems are so much easier with this thing:
My favorite shot of the night:
Motion shot of this awesome '65 Grand Sport rolling in:
This was a problem: this Eldorado was so large I had trouble framing it! Do you see why I was so interested?
This is why 
:
Got low for this Mirada:
Cleanest '67 Camaro ever against the most appropriate background ever:
Again, detail shots with this thing are so much easier:
Another motion shot of this lady and her sweet IROC:
How about a motion shot of a possible Motion Corvette?
And one last parking lot spy shot of this lady's Javelin:
All in all, it's so much nicer having the D3300 over what I had before. It is much easier to frame shots and to focus on small details than ever before. The WiFi adapter I have also kicks major butt. I was able to transfer these pictures and more to my phone in about 30 seconds! Can't wait to dive deeper into photography. Next up is learning to shoot in RAW format so I can edit things down easier afterwards.
What's the resolution on those? I'm not sure about anyone else, but I shoot in only RAW.
Esoteric Nixon wrote: What's the resolution on those? I'm not sure about anyone else, but I shoot in only RAW.
I also only shoot RAW. The sensor has much higher dynamic range than a jpeg does, so if you shoot raw you can adjust the exposure by something like 2/3 of a stop after the fact without losing any quality at all, that's reason enough by itself.
BTW, if you aren't using Adobe Lightroom yet, I recommend it.
In reply to Esoteric Nixon:
I'm honestly not sure. They compressed a bit when I loaded them onto my phone, and then I hosted them online. I bet they lost a bit of resolution in the process.
I will start shooting in RAW next time. I talked to my photographer buddy and he told me that's basically the way to go, because it's easier to touch stuff up later on.
For hosting photos, if you want them to look their best you really need to skip the various free hosting sites and pay for something. It's not all that expensive, as an amateur (i.e., not trying to make money selling prints) you can do this for $50-75/year. Free hosting will compress the hell out of your photos, and it noticeably degrades the quality.
I recommend smugmug.com, that's who I use and they're good. No quotas, lots of site customization, decent defaults.
Our photographet friend payed for a flickr account. As far as i know you cam get full rez shots back out of it too with even a free account.
Good to know about the hosting. On the blog I write for, I can throw up full resolution shots if I want to, so paying for a service is not really too necessary. I can adjust the size that's displayed, and when you click on the picture, the full resolution shot can be seen.
One thing I need to start doing is watermarking shots. I've seen a few of my shots floating around the interwebs already that I know I took.
I refuse to post any full-resolution shots online. Once it's out there, it's out there, so if people want to steal photos, at least they're limited to low-res versions. Frankly, for online viewing, there's really little reason to post much bigger than 1024x768 unless you're doing resolution testing or something; big resolution is only meaningful if you're printing big.
I bought an older EOS Rebel DSLR secondhand as I have a film based EOS camera; didn't have any trouble using its lenses with the DSLR.
SilverFleet wrote: In reply to Esoteric Nixon: I'm honestly not sure. They compressed a bit when I loaded them onto my phone, and then I hosted them online. I bet they lost a bit of resolution in the process. I will start shooting in RAW next time. I talked to my photographer buddy and he told me that's basically the way to go, because it's easier to touch stuff up later on.
Oh absolutely. I was asking about resolution not because of photo-hosting, but because I was curious just how compressed they were after sending them to your phone. I'm not sure how well that will work or how long it will take if you try doing that with RAW files, but you probably have already thought about it.
02Pilot wrote: I refuse to post any full-resolution shots online. Once it's out there, it's out there, so if people want to steal photos, at least they're limited to low-res versions. Frankly, for online viewing, there's really little reason to post much bigger than 1024x768 unless you're doing resolution testing or something; big resolution is only meaningful if you're printing big.
1024x768 is pitiful, my laptop is 3360x2100 (MBP with retina display). My phone has higher resolution than that (Google Nexus 5, it's 1920x1080). You're about 15 years out of date if you think that's the maximum resolution people can view, even on the web.
Yes, people may steal my photos when I post them at full resolution. So what? I'm not a pro photographer, I'm not going to make any money off the ones I post, and refusing to post them at full resolution means that I'm depriving myself of the enjoyment of sharing my photos with other people.
codrus wrote:02Pilot wrote: I refuse to post any full-resolution shots online. Once it's out there, it's out there, so if people want to steal photos, at least they're limited to low-res versions. Frankly, for online viewing, there's really little reason to post much bigger than 1024x768 unless you're doing resolution testing or something; big resolution is only meaningful if you're printing big.1024x768 is pitiful, my laptop is 3360x2100 (MBP with retina display). My *phone* has higher resolution than that (Google Nexus 5, it's 1920x1080). You're about 15 years out of date if you think that's the maximum resolution people can view, even on the web. Yes, people may steal my photos when I post them at full resolution. So what? I'm not a pro photographer, I'm not going to make any money off the ones I post, and refusing to post them at full resolution means that I'm depriving myself of the enjoyment of sharing my photos with other people.
A good picture is a good picture even at low resolution; a boring picture is a boring picture even at ultra-high resolution. 1024x768 is plenty to determine which category any given photo falls into. All the pixels in the world won't fix boring. If you want to go bigger, that's fine, but it's not necessary.
If someone wants the full resolution version on one of my photos, they're more than welcome to buy a print.
MadScientistMatt wrote: I bought an older EOS Rebel DSLR secondhand as I have a film based EOS camera; didn't have any trouble using its lenses with the DSLR.
Back in the 80's or thereabout when the major SLR manufacturers went autofocus, Canon and Minolta totally revised their lens mounts. On the other hand, Nikon and Pentax kept their mounts physically the same - ie. the old lenses wouldn't autofocus (obviously) and probably had to be used in manual, but at least they mounted up to the new camera bodies.
That's why your EOS film lenses would mount to an EOS DSLR, they were made after the change. The OP's dad's Canon lenses were made before the change, they would not mount up to either a film or digital EOS series camera without an adapter.
RossD, are you still looking at Pentax bodies? The K-50 seems more traditional to me, the K-S1 has some interesting features, I don't know that you could go wrong going with one vs. the other. I will say that I don't find manual focusing to be all that much fun with modern DLSR's. There are some assistance you can get from the on-board AF system but it's not like the old days with split-prism viewfinders.
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