Moldy Mail

[Bigbitt8706]

Tell me what you think:

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/IMG_0262.jpg

[Boucher]

i'd like to see more depth of focus and it looks a little blurry to me? like camera shake or something..

boucher.

[Flo]

Its Out Of Focus.

Big.what are you using, setting etc...is this handheld.I am thinking it is......

It's like the settings may be off.your pier photo was also OOF.

[Bigbitt8706]

this one is meant to be out of focus, its focal point being the mold on the far right sideits 1/50 at 24mm at 100 iso... here is the color corrected version, sorry about that first one:
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/IMG_0262edited.jpg

[Anke]

this one is meant to be out of focus, its focal point being the mold on the far right sideits 1/50 at 24mm at 100 iso... here is the color corrected version, sorry about that first one:


I can see where you are going with the depth of field part but absolutely 100% of this image is OOF. The bit that should be in focus on the right is not in focus at all.

[Bigbitt8706]

i dont understand, what do you mean the mold is OOF? you can see tiny indvidual spores

[Anke]

i dont understand, what do you mean the mold is OOF? you can see tiny indvidual spores

If you go and look at the wall yourself you will see a lot more detail because this image is plainly out of focus, yes you can still make out what things are but it isn't sharp, in fact it makes me quite dizzy looking at it.
Perhaps go back and take another shot, this time on a tripod or with a faster shutter speed to really cut out all camera shake.

[Flo]

I also understand what you were shooting for, but it is still OOF.....you are not trying to have it OOF on the focal point..if you had the front subject(mould) ib focus, the rest of the photo would have had a shallower depth of field, giving you a blurred effect instead of an OOF issue.

Kind of an example.I was shooting this driftwood, and wanted the end closest to me in focus, while having the length of the log less..
.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/emmaloudawg/gabriola/IMG_9566.jpg

It gives the eye a start and finish.......

[Radtech1]

Clint,

Welcome to the board and please don't let the critique keep you away - you did post this in critique corner after all.

The above posters touch on many of the things that is wrong with the photo - Anke is right, the shot is out of focus and shaky - which takes away from the sharpness.

But the thing that really reduces the impact of this shot is that the photograph has no subject! It is all background.

The razor thin area of the mold that is less blurry than the rest of the shot does not make for an interesting photo. You need something for the photograph to be of.

But that is not saying that this type of shooting is a complete waste of time. It is a good skill builder. If you can learn, thorough shots like these, to control your depth of field and to isolate certain areas then you can take those skills and use them to the best advantage when you do have a subject. Think of these as practice. Go do more. Learn to use your camera without having wonder what this or that does.

Then come back an blow us all away with a shot really worth looking at.

Rad

[vpnd]

I agree with most above. You needed at least a sliver of the mold to be dead sharp. The bokeh idea works well for it though.

[Cobra351]

I agree, at least something here should be in focus. I can see and appreciate what you were going for here, but some part of it should be in focus.

[tdodd]

You do seem to have a strange phenomenon going on with your photo. You can see you have a narrow depth of field, intentionally, and the sharpest area is within the photo so you would expect something in there to be razor sharp. But nothing looks sharp anywhere.

You used a 50mm lens and a shutter speed of 1/50, so some camera shake is a possibility, if you weren't being careful when you pressed the shutter. I'm assuming you did not use an image stabilised lens. If that's the case then your shutter speed should have been more like 1/80 or faster to eliminate camera shake, since you were using a crop body camera.

I tried a test shot this morning to see how my own comparable results would look. I wasn't about to go and hunt down some moss on a wall but simply shot the carpet at close range, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/100. I actuallly intended to go for f/5.6 but it seems I knocked my AE mode to P instead of Av, but the principle is still good. f/4.5 gives me a very narrow DOF at close range and you can see the band of sharp area .( didn't have the camera completely level with the floor so it is a bit on the diagonal. I've then included a 100% crop to show the sharpness within the "sharp band" and the OOF areas either side. It seems to me that my shot exhibits definite sharpness at some point in the picture, where yours does not.

I'm guessing camera shake is the problem, but it could also be that your lens is not super sharp wide open at 50mm - I'm guessing you have the kit lens. EDIT : Doh! I see it's in your sig.

Try shooting again, if you can, either with a higher shutter speed or with a monopod or tripod (preferred) to steady the camera.

EDIT : I reshot the carpet images again, to reflect more accurately the camera settings used in the original photo. See the next post for revised photos.

[tdodd]

As it didn't take long to do, I reshot, this time at 48mm (it was a zoom lens), f/5.6 and 1/60, so pretty close to your figures. I also made more of an effort to keep the camera straight.

Here is the full image, resized to 25% and a 100% crop.

[Bigbitt8706]

thanks for the input... next rainy day i have, i'm going to go and try to re shoot this with my tripod

[Bigbitt8706]

I re shot this afternoon, got it in focus, but i have another question, in color:
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/IMG_0647edited2.jpg


or black and white
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/IMG_0647edited.jpg ?

[Anke]

These are more in focus and suffer from far less camera shake but still could do with some post-process sharpening, do you do any sharpening?
Do you see how these new images you posted are more in focus than your first attempts?

[Bigbitt8706]

hell yeah i do, they look tons better... thanks for the help everybody, this is why i love this forum. i havnt done any sharpening yet, but i'm going to tool around with it and see what i can get.

[tdodd]

Your new colour version looks much better. I'm afraid the B&W conversion doesn't work for me.

[Rant}
Mind you, I rarely like B&W conversions of anything. My eyes see in colour. I like colour. The camera captures the scene in colour. Why throw away that information, unless you have trouble with mixed light sources affecting colour balance. You don't see many studios shooting movies in B&W these days. There's probably a good reason for that. How many wedding videos are shot in B&W? Not many, I bet. Why should stills photography be any different? B&W is not natural. Sometimes it can be artistic, but at other times it is simply a cliched gimmick.
[/Rant]

Your picture does have texture, which can work in B&W, but surely at least half the fascination is with the contrasting greens/yellows of the moss/lichen against the red brick wall and the mail flag. Take away the colour and, in my opinion, you lose a lot of the purpose/appeal of the photo.

[Flo]

Much better the second time around...I still would have liked to see the focus point on the very end of the bricks instead of a few steps behind?

[redbird]

Oh, colour, definitely (IMHO) though the bright red upside-down L thing in the background is distracting. B & W is a bit non-discript.

[abid786]

What method did you use for B/W conversion? The conversion doesn't look too good (compared to other on this forum), unfortunately.

[Bigbitt8706]

I completley agree with you tdodd, b&w can become very cliched and overdone, i was just wondering about this one because i like in the b&w how it's almost impossible to tell what it is a picture of.

Flo, i made it focus were there was more moss closer to the camera, the photos were it is focused farther down gave me a headache as the green was almost entirely blurry

Thanks for the input redbird, the big red upside down L is the mail flag, and i thought it was pretty distracting too so i converted it to b&w, and like you said, it's non descript, but i think that is the best feature of the b&w version.


abid786 i just used Photoshop to convert to b&w, because i am a lazy photographer that doesnt save in raw


here is the sharpened and croped version:
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/IMG_0647edited6.jpg

[poloman]

color but I find the postal flag distracting.

[tdodd]

Me too, but as the photo (well the thread at least) was entitled "Moldy Mail" I kind of figured it was a key part of the picture, and therefore had to stay.

[Flo]

Having your camera at the end of the bricks.facing towards the flag.woud hold a better perspective for me than as it stands now...I am being picky, but its still to blurry for me....:confused:

[Davidoff]

I think the other one you posted looked better, the colour one. This one looks way over-sharpened. As well as a bit of posterisation/noise in the oof areas I think.