This Day Was Not Meant to be!!!

[Mum2J&M]

Sorry to rant, but I spent close to 4 hours at a park with the kids today. They had a carousel, mini boat ride, train ride and playgrounds. The kids had a great time and I took, what I thought, were some fantastic pics. When I got home and uploaded them, something was clearly wrong. Not sure wth I did, but hardly anything was in focus! All I remember is using a lot of pop-up fill flash and was often at ISO 100 and shutter at 200 for the fill (depending how close/far I was from the kids). Maybe it was me being stupid and not using manual to make sure my aperture wasn't getting to big. With the 24-70L, do you have to be careful about your macro settings? In other words, if it is in the "macro" area on the lens, would that effect images? Or is it all totally automatic? To top it off, I uploaded everything onto smugmug (or so I thought) and it says "processing images" on every single one. :evil: I am very disappointed in myself. I can't believe the images looked so soft and so much was OOF. Almost makes me just want to put the camera down for a few weeks and forget about it. Sometimes I think I'm trying to learn too much at once. I just don't get how the fishing pictures I took last week came out like 90% better than the pics I took today. I know the lighting was a bit better, but still... I am so frustrated right now I could scream! :mad:

[cosworth]

Sometimes the over confidence or the enthusiam can bite back. It's good to take a break once in a while.

ISO 100? It's a Canon, come on. Bump it to ISO 200 or 320 and stick it in AV at f/8. Hell stick it in P at Iso 200. It should work just fine for you.

Don't suffer from ISO fear. You tried to avoid screen noise that is invisible in print and all your shots are useless.

Would you rather have them all in focus and usable with a little bit o' noise? Bump the ISO next time.

[Curtis N]

I uploaded everything onto smugmug (or so I thought) and it says "processing images" on every single one.I'm having the same problem at the moment. I think we just have to have a little patience and smuggy will get caught up.

You could attach one or two and provide EXIF. Maybe we can figure out what went wrong.

[Mum2J&M]

Yeah, I know what you mean. 100 is normally much too low even on sunny days. I may have been around 200 with the shutter at 200 now that I think about it, but of course I can't see the exif until the damn pics upload. Anyway, I remember the shutter being too high compared to what I normally use and I was just all over the place. Maybe I should've just avoided the fill. Don't know. It was definitely an "off" day for me though. I just get angry with myself for not thinking things through.

[Mum2J&M]

Oh Curtis - so it isn't just me... now I'm in the midst of upload #2. So I guess I'll have all the wonderful images up there twice? Lovely, lol.

[cosworth]

I learned this very quickly, never ever rush a photographer.

People that can rush through stuff and still get great shots are masters in my books.

[Mum2J&M]

I'm thinking either I just need a break, or I should seriously look into taking some more classes. I know when I was taking classes in the past, it really helped me to be among others doing the same thing and to have specific goals in mind. Maybe I'm just the type of person who needs that constant push. Who the heck knows. Let's just hope I do better next time. Thanks for your support guys. I just feel like a total idiot at the moment. Had to get it out of my system. ;)

[spyraling]

No advice (because I still suck at this photography thing), but you have plenty of sympathy from me. Sometimes it's hard to get the exposure and focus right when you're rushed for time, which is usually the case when you're with your kids. "Hmm, which do I do - check my aperture or grab my two-year old before he falls into the creek?" ;)

Chin up, girl, there's better days ahead.

[Mum2J&M]

Thanks Mary. Yeah, sometimes with kids, it's a real rush job. I was also really frustrated trying to get a good composition - like not cutting things out. Not so much arms and legs, but bits of park rides - and trying to keep out annoying, obtrusive things like other people's heads and body parts. I think it was pretty overwhelming to tell you the truth. Just too much to think about. It's pretty tough to avoid cropping and pp-ing when there are hundreds of other people cluttering up an image. I don't mind showing some to establish the context of what was going on, but there was this one fat lady with a cigarette that just couldn't help sticking her rear-end in my boat pics. It was making me mental! Seems like whenever I moved, she moved. I'm definitely a crop-a-holic and need to cut that out as well. I think my head is just still spinning from all the things I had to take into consideration. I can't blame the kids. I didn't have to bring the camera (ha, ha, we all know how that goes).

[Curtis N]

I'm definitely a crop-a-holic and need to cut that out as well.Cropping is not a sin. If you can make a picture better by cropping, do it. It's not a substitute for careful composition, just another part of the process.

Your pictures are up, I think. And I can't see a darn thing wrong with them, at least not at Smugmug size.

[Mum2J&M]

Curtis - keep in mind I had about 300 of them and only 15 are up. I also did some pp-ing for all of these. Lots of them were underexposed. The ones that were not in focus are not up. I will have to include one in this thread. I hope I didn't just get po'd and delete them. Let me have a look and I'll show you what I'm talking about.

[Mum2J&M]

Damn, I'll have to drag it back out of the recycle bin. The boat was in focus, but my son's smiling face wasn't. I wasn't too close and it was likely center focus head on, so I'm not sure what happened for that one. I'll look for it and get it posted by tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to bed before my husband lays the guilt trip on me. Good night all.

[Curtis N]

One thing that will help with Smugmug is if you downsize the pictures before uploading. Your file sizes are up there in the multi-megabytes. 1800 pixels on the longest side is more than enough for 4x6 or 5x7 prints. And a little compression wouldn't hurt, either. They'll upload faster and Smuggy will process them faster.

Take a look at my smugmug page (http://performancephoto.smugmug.com/)if you like. The files are mostly between 500 and 700 kb.

[Mum2J&M]

Thanks Curtis. I know I have got to start doing that. They are way out of control, lol.

[Tee Why]

definitely sounds like some focus issues, at least without having seen the pics.
Macro mode on the 24-70 just means you are focusing close to the minimum focus distance, and when you zoom in and get close, focusing needs to be extremely price and you often have to stop down a bit to get the dof deeper.

BTW, for me, when taking shots becomes a drudgery or work, that the time to stop shooting for a while.

[Mum2J&M]

Ok, so it doesn't sound like a macro issue at all then. I was likely using fill flash and I wonder if the AF was having trouble in too little light? I don't think it was due to my son moving since the boat wasn't blurred? I know. Hard to say without seeing it. I've got to find that darned thing. Hey - I've got to get my butt up to bed, or I'll be in deep doo-doo. I promise to find the image I'm talking about and get it up tomorrow. Thanks again everyone.