[Opinions] Smoking, it kills..

Since joining the forums i am going through all of my pics, and came across this pic.

I took this pic when i first got my 20D in Oct 2005, i was bored at my uncles place while staying in toronto (home for me) and had nothing to take pics of, it was very cold out, so what i did was:

Took some white paper and made a little "stage" looked around for things to put on the stage and found an ash tray, so dumped them out, then took some pics of it, now the light in the office was one of those halogen light bulbs so it gives that yellow tinge, also the 20D was brand new to me, so i really didn tknow what i was doing!

Now in the end it turned out nice - i think, the yellowish color to me represents the yellow nasty stain from cigarettes.

I can see what you were trying to do, but the cigarettes & butts get lost in the background. The blurred foreground is distracting as well, so a little more DoF would be nice.

That's just my opinion though & I agree cigarettes kills, I gave up 5 months ago now

mijbril wrote:
I can see what you were trying to do, but the cigarettes & butts get lost in the background. The blurred foreground is distracting as well, so a little more DoF would be nice.

That's just my opinion though & I agree cigarettes kills, I gave up 5 months ago now

congrats on giving up, and your opinion is what matters to me, one outside of my own

i was using M setting, - i have not really learned DoF or anything yet so i can understand where i lack - too much blurr and back ground too big

Would i have been better to focus in closer to the cig's to fill more of the frame ?, perhaps having some blurred foreground - but less of it ?

I guess the majority % should be of a non blurred object ? or your focus ?

Again, this is just my opinion, but when going for that narrow/shallow DoF, you want your subject to really pop out from the background where as yours tends to blend into the background instead, so it's not so much a matter of size as set up, something a little less yellow (though I can see the reasoning behind the yellow choice as well)

The blurred foreground, well, until the blurry black line, there's about an inch or two of nothingness, just non-descript yellow which is finally broken up by some distracting blurred ash/butts, if you could get a little more of the foreground into focus that might work.

The OOF cigarettes in the background work nicely & don't distract though alas they blend into the yellow backdrop

Finally, a different WB may give you a different cast/hue as well as the various shades of yellow will react differently I guess. A bit of T&E for you

That about wracks my brain for a 5 minute answer

thanks , much appreciated - i used auto white balance - so that explains that.

if the background was more white, not a yellowish blending to a white would of been better? and crop off about an inch from the bottom, but also put the start of the ashed into focus giving about 2" instead of "1 of focused area

Of basically making 2/3 of the butt focued with alot less less unfocused?

input is always appreciated - i know most posts are simply personal opinion and i like that, it is when people post "opinion" acting as if it is a "fact" that starts to cause issues

critize!!

You cant handle the truth - hell no - i sure can - As i like to say (maybe some famous person did, but i think i just made it up from my basketball days) You only get better by playing those who are better then you..... (i copyright that if it has not been said before )