First Shots from 20D

Hi Guys

Well I am very new to Digital SLR coming from a point and shoot Kodack.
I have only had the camera for a week and today was the only day I had to play with it.

The Canon 20D Rocks

Here is a pic I tool out in my garden, So I would love your coments on it as I am very new to photography and all the help I can get would be great.

Please let me know

Thanks

Mick

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Congratulations on your new camera

A better place to put thread like this are the photo sharing forums, half way down the main page of the site.

That's a nice flower, but I can see a few problems. The yellow on the end of the flower's very bright and uniform, which means you've blown the highlights a bit. It might be because they were in direct sunlight, which isn't good for taking photos. Sunlight on the read petals also makes part of the picture too bright, and the inside of the flower too dark - digital cameras can't handle too much dynamic range. Perhaps try again when the sun isn't directly on the flower, or use your flash to reduce the shadows.

First congrats on the camera... you'll love it as does almost everyone who has purchased the 20D.

The image has a few problems though, as previously stated. There are blown highlights, harsh shadows, and the focus seems be a little soft. It seems as though the top left green leaf on the stem/twig is in sharper focus than the flower itself. Did you use the 9 point predictive focus or did you manually select a focus point? It looks like you probably used the 9 point focus.

As for the harsh shadows and blow highlights, the culprit is most likely that this image was taken in mid-day direct sunlight which is probably the worst time to take photo's. You can however improve the look by learning how to use fill flash in daylight to remove/reduce harsh shadows.

Yes, the flash will help and shoot it again later in the day, but over all nice photo.