Newbie

[INcowboy]

One of my first pics ever with a Digital SLR. Feedback and tips would be greatly appreciated. Thx!



http://lh6.google.com/INcowboy/Ro_klLyaLfI/AAAAAAAAASA/IKQD3-0wVyA/s800/IMG_1627.jpg

[Dchemist]

Nice job, the colors are bright and good contrast and you fill the frame with the subject. Shooting in the sun is tough. Dennis

[poloman]

Looks good to me.
Next time you post try getting 800 pixels on the longest side. Would love to see a larger version.
Flowers are a great subject. Shoot AV and experiment with depth of field by changing the aperture.:)

[howzitboy]

pretty shot and nice background. i like how all the greens (in bg) dont get into any of the flowers. good eye.

[INcowboy]

Looks good to me.
Next time you post try getting 800 pixels on the longest side. Would love to see a larger version.
Flowers are a great subject. Shoot AV and experiment with depth of field by changing the aperture.:)

Thanks for the feedback all. I will keep experimenting with the depth of field in AV mode. Im still trying to figure out how the apeture etc. need to be changed in different lighting, and to achieve different dof etc. There is so much to learn its a bit overwhelming at times.

If you click on the download photo link to the right of the image at picasa you can view the image at 1024x768. For some reason I couldnt get it to post using the link picasa supplied.

[tdodd]

It's a nice choice of subject and a great contrast against the OOF background. Unfortunately, I can't actually spot anything that's really sharp with the plant itself. I see you've shot at f/13, probably to provide enough DOF to compensate for the 300mm (x1.6 = 480mm equivalent) focal length. Unfortunately that has given a shutter speed of only 1/30. That means that if you had IS it would be unlikely to save you and there was a risk of subject movement from any breeze. This is the kind of shot which, from my recent experience, needs a tripod to assist in finding and keeping an accurate focus point and to remove camera shake, and either a very calm day and/or a higher ISO to increase shutter speed and avoid subject "shake".

You've also just fractionally chopped the bottom off one of the petals as well. I think if you have the opportunity it would be worth trying to reshoot and see if you can nail focus and sharpness. Also have a play with -ve EC to quench what appear to be very slightly blown whites in the petals.

Here is an example of a flower and a couple of unedited (no sharpening etc.) 100% crops that I took while experimenting in the back garden this afternoon. There were several attempts with varying degrees of success but I think this was the best one for my intended purposes - getting the sharpest shot I could. Composition was secondary, along with exposure. The key to the success of the shot was to use a tripod and to very carefully focus manually to exactly where I wanted to concentrate the attetion. I then selected an aperture to give me a moderate DOF and bumped the ISO to gain a high shutter speed as it is quite windy today. Then it was a case of waiting till the wind died down and the plant settled at my pre-focused point and firing off a shot or two. I shot at 300mm to match your shot but used only f/7.1 and bumped ISO to 400 to get a nice fast 1/1250th shutter speed. I admit I was using "L" glass but I think the biggest contributor to the quality of the shot was the tripod and the patience (plus several attempts).
http://www.easytiger.plus.com/photos/20070702_164648.jpg http://www.easytiger.plus.com/photos/20070702_164648-2.jpg http://www.easytiger.plus.com/photos/20070702_164648-3.jpg

[INcowboy]

I see what you mean thanks for the breakdown and images that helps a lot.

[poloman]

Tdodd,
Your shot looks a bit washed out to me.
http://djome.zenfolio.com/img/v0/p623349139.jpg
INcowboy,
I took a look at your larger version accessed through the link. I'm not convinced that motion blur is a problem. If I were you, I would try sharpening that photo a bit.:)

[tdodd]

Tdodd,
Your shot looks a bit washed out to me.

INcowboy,
I took a look at your larger version accessed through the link. I'm not convinced that motion blur is a problem. If I were you, I would try sharpening that photo a bit.:)
I agree that compared to your photo mine looks a little less colourful but it does seem to be an accurate rendition of the scene. I did no processing on the photo whatsoever - just imported the raw file into Lightroom and export out as a resized jpeg. However, I did discover that the application I used to put the photo on the web was performing further compression so the image did not look too clever. I've changed my hosting and put better quality versions up. They still have no edits other than resize or crop.

Regarding the OP's photo, I agree in this case motion blur does not seem to be the issue but it is something to watch for. I'm sure sharpening would help but we don't know what steps the OP took to getting his photo onto the web - was it shot raw or jpeg and what parameters were set in the camera? He may have used Picasa to upload the photo but how was it edited, if at all? Did he try sharpening already? There are several unknowns.

[INcowboy]

I didnt do any editing of the photo other then to crop it so the flower was more centered. It was shot in raw format and exported from lightroom to a jpg at maximum quality. Honestly I dont really know what to look for when editing so I am trying to focus on learning how to take solid pictures before I start trying to moidify them. Im pretty green and dont feel real confident in my ability to edit the image. Im hoping as I gain more knowledge I will have a better understanding of what the different tweaks do, instead of just modifying images randomly.

[poloman]

The raw editor is non destructive so try different things and see what you like best. When sharpening, zoom in to 100% and use the sharpening slider. If you see little whitish circular marks you need to back off a bit. High pass sharpening in photoshop works very well. Keep shooting, you've done very well starting out.:)

[poloman]

Tdodd,
I was just looking at your post again. 1/1250th and a tripod was the key to the success of the shot? Only if your a victim of high speed parkinson's disease.:)

[tdodd]

Tdodd,
I was just looking at your post again. 1/1250th and a tripod was the key to the success of the shot? Only if your a victim of high speed parkinson's disease.:)
The tripod meant I could adjust focus with surgical precision. If I had been hand-holding then I would have wavered all over the place and never got the stamens/anthers sharp. I've just plugged my stats (30D, 300mm, f7.1, 180cm) into the online DOF calculator here - http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html - and I had 4mm either side of the point of focus, so the tiniest amount of wavering on my part would have lost the shot. Also, it was very breezy so the plant was moving around a lot. Sometimes it settled for a moment, which is how I got to focus on the thing at all, but I needed a high shutter speed (perhaps not 1/1250, but certainly far more than the OP's 1/30) to freeze motion in the plant.

Maybe 1/250 or so would have been OK but I have been practicing shooting birds at a bird feeder recently and those little fellas are so "busy" that motion blur is clearly evident even at 1/250, and that's with the birds perched and pecking rather than in flight or landing etc.. So at the moment I've got a bit of an aversion to slow shutter speeds. ;)

Here's one of my more successful birding attempts (motion blur wise), at 1/250, but there have many many photos even under 1/500 that have had to be dumped through motion blur. This is a 100% crop from a photo taken at 400mm. I know precious little about birds but the reason this one is so scruffy is, I think, that he is from this spring's hatch and seems to be moulting his baby feathers...

http://www.easytiger.plus.com/photos/20070702_170207.jpg