Stargazer

[photosession]

This is my first post to this board. I'm new at this and I hope I do this right! I purchased a Canon powershot S1 back in July. I've really enjoyed taking photos with it. Following is one of the first pictures I took! Any advice or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[Radtech1]

Welcome to the Board!

I am glad that you are enjoying your camera and we hope to see more of your work. As to this shot, you did post it in "Critique Corner" - the focus of which is to offer our thoughts as to what could be better in a shot. That said, the big issue here is one of focus. The shot seems to be out of focus throughout. I know that the acutal flower has soft transitions in color, but the edges should be sharp and they are not. After that, I would say that you could have pulled back the two pods encroaching from the left.

Again, if you just wanted people to see your shot, the "Nature/Animals" forum would have been a good choice too. Dont be suprised if other respondents in this forum point out other things as well.

Lets see more.

Rad

[ppuga]

Welcome aboard!

As Rad said, the main issue in this picture is FOCUS, may be you want to use another setting in your camera so you get the main subject in focus and the background a little more blured, then you will get a better result.

Do you remember the EXIF data of the shot?

Enjoy the forum, you will learn a lot! As I do.

;)

[photosession]

Thanks Rad for the suggestion! Believe it or not on my computer and when I printed this pic out the focus is much better. I'm not sure what happened when I posted this. Maybe I should have changed the size. Anyway, I realize now that I should have pulled the two pods to the left off. Oh well, maybe next spring! I thought about posting it to the Nature/Animals thread but I really wanted some suggestions on how to make it better.

PPUGA,
Again, not sure what happened to the focus. On the print out and on my computer it is much better than this one. Just yesterday I figured out how to blur the background and make the subject really pop. As for the EXIF data, I'm not sure if this is what your looking for but this is the only info. I've got: Shutter speed 1/1000 FNumber 3.5

Thanks to both of you for you suggestions. I'm really enjoying the forum and I'm learning a lot!

[Bodryn]

I, too, have a Canon S1 IS and find it is ideally suited for nature photography. I agree; the lack of focus is displeasing to the eye. What's nice about the S1 IS is that you can set manual focus in several of the shooting modes and you can lock focus in at least two different ways. I look forward to more from you going forward. Enjoy!