first pictures...what do you say?

[teachrock]

This is my first album with my G1. All consrtuctive feedback is welcome!


Dave

http://www.zing.com/album/?id=4292738717

[Don Cohen]

I think you're off to a nice start. Some nice portraits of ?wife? daughter?.

I really had to laugh when I saw the shot of the dog jumping into the pool. Well caught.

As for constructive criticism, one fault in several pictures were that the highlights were blown out in several areas, meaning overexposure, and lack of detail. This is present in some of the backgrounds, but also sometimes in the main subjects. An important rule in photography is to "expose for the highlights" so you avoid having white, blown out areas without detail.

But aside from that, a very good start.

[teachrock]

Don,

Thank you very much for the tips. I have been shooting with my camera on program mode with "daylight" for white balance, ISO 50 and most of the other settings are normal. I rarely use a flash and if I do I have the compensation set to -1. When I edit my pictures in adobe using auto correct, it almost always darkens the colors, making them more rich. Any tips with regard to camera settings?


Thanks,

Dave

[Don Cohen]

Hi Dave,

As far as the initial exposure and camera settings, there's no single piece of advice, as different situations will require different strategies. If you're shooting where there are wide differences between light and dark, there's going to be some difficulty no matter what you do. If you're not using flash, then use your meter to set the exposure for the brightest areas, to avoid blowing out the highlights, and plan on using your editing software to bring out the shadow detail. Sometimes, though, you may need to use fill-in flash if the shadows will be too deep to be rescued.

As for EV compensation, it's very important to understand how light meters work. There's a very excellent chapter in John Shaw's Field Guide to Nature Photography (and probably some of his other books as well) where he covers this subject. Basically, whatever mode you've chosen for metering (matrix/average, spot, or center weighted), the meter examines those areas, and calculates what will be needed to produce a "neutral" tone. If that's what you want, and you're metering on things that are overall neutral, it'll give you what you want. But if you're metering on snow, for example, it will come out grey (which is what the meter is programmed to do). If you want it white, you'll need to bump up EV a stop or two. Conversely, if you're metering on something dark or black, the meter will make it grey unless you reduce EV a stop or two.

Also, as you get more experience, you'll probably want to leave "program" mode, and take charge of the camera, and not let it decide what your settings should be.

As for editing, you don't indicate which program you're using: Adobe PhotoShop or Photo Deluxe. The "auto" settings there, like the "auto" settings on the camera, will work some of the time, but eventually you'll get better results more consistently once you learn to make the adjustments of levels and curves manually. If you've not done this before, it's definitely going to take many hours or practice, trial and error, etc. But eventually you'll get the hang of it, and you'll be in control of the process from shooting to editing to printing.

Hope this helps.

[teachrock]

Thanks again Don...looks like I have a lot to learn! I appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom. You mentioned a book by John Shaw. Is this one that you would recommend to a beginning photographer using the G1? Any others?


Dave

[Don Cohen]

Dave,

Plenty of people have taken their time (and continue to do so) to help me along the way, so I'm glad to pass it along.

I'm very interested in nature photography (browse around my site if you have time), and found John Shaw's book extremely helpful in that area. But it also includes some chapters on basic photography. I thought I was reasonably familiar with this stuff, but found out I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

Highly recommended.

Best regards,