First Bokeh attempts

Both of these photos are "old" (1yr and 3?yrs), but as I had NO idea what I was doing at the time, I was just wanting a little C&C to see what other people think about them!

Taken with Nikon D50 & kit lens (with built in flash)

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The problem that I have is that the subject is very busy and I have a hard time deciding where the focus is. It doesn't not seem to lend itself well to a test in Bokeh. If they were more individual flowers it would make sense to focus on the individual flower and have the rest fall off in the background. With these subjects I would think they would be better with the entire bunch in focus.

Mendal,
You make a very good point! I had thought about this as a problem with calling them "bokeh", my next question would be, what else would they be called? "flower shots"? lol
Thanks,
Parker

jpbimages,
Hi, I noticed by your sig that you shoot with a D50, man thats one of my favorite cameras! aside from whats listed in my sig, I have 2 D50'S , a D100 converted to IR and about 20 Nikkor lenses, most of them being manual focus! I love the way the lenses work on the D50 esp the MF ones, you can put any lens on infinity and it will be spot on focussed! I get the MF ones cause they are so much cheaper and are excellent quality and have good IQ too. I'm still going to keep my Canon stuff cause I love it and I have no plans to "change over" I just thought it neat to see someone else shooting a D50 on the Canon forum! Nice pics I think, but I like the second, which was NOT a D50, hehee!

Seenerjh,
You're lucky with your 20 lenses, I wish I had more than my kit lens, but the student budget doesn't allow such a thing, particularly while saving up for a new canon! lol
What about this infinity trick you're speaking of? I want a nifty fifty for cheap... is this a possibility with this trick?

jpbimages wrote in post #9644018
Seenerjh,
You're lucky with your 20 lenses, I wish I had more than my kit lens, but the student budget doesn't allow such a thing, particularly while saving up for a new canon! lol
What about this infinity trick you're speaking of? I want a nifty fifty for cheap... is this a possibility with this trick?

Hehee, no trick there, just on manual focus lens you set it to the infinity mark all the way to the left of the lens usually and it will be in focus! Canon has nothing to compare with this because there older lenses are the FD type and you would need an adapter even for your Canon (if you had one) if you want a cheap but good fifty for your D50, look for a nikon series E 50mm 1.8, these can be had for around $30 used and are excellent quality, also look for an older Nikkor 50 1.8 AI or AIS for your D50 , can be had for less than your kits kit lens cost and are also excellent quality! You will have to focus manually and guess at the aperature unless you have a light meter, and there is a green confirmation light in the viewfinder that lets you know when you are in focus, seems like a lot of trouble, but it is truly worth it for the sharp crisp images it will produce!
Cheers,
John

Not intending to be difficult, there's not much background in these images. What little there is is pleasantly soft. There's a bit of noise in the second one. I would be more concerned about depth of field. It's narrow, which puts large portions of the subject out of focus.

I don't know about others, but I don't pay much attention to bokeh unless the lack of it is jarring. My attention goes more to the subject. Hence my observation about DOF.

#1: The frontal flash is providing similar intensity of illumination across the flowers, making them look more equidistant from camera, losing the 3D curvature. What's in focus is too small for the eye to settle on, so it's not an easy picture to view.

#2 works much better: while it's hard to work out quite what's in particularly crisp focus here, there's more interest that's gets the eye moving around, and enough that's not obviously blurry. Some particular point of interest (e.g. insect, leaf) could have improved it considerably though.

Cheers,
Tony

Thanks for all the help guys! Glad to know I was doing *some* good back then!