Photography From An Amateur.

[StandbySetting]

Cheers Ace, it's a Buddleia I think, not sure off the species.

 

[StandbySetting]

I had another go with it on TV as recommended, and this is what I got, it still lacks definition but the colour isn't as 'fake':

Then I tried it on A-dep and got this:

 

[ian]

just ran that second pic through Office pic manager and got this...

this was just altering the hue and saturation. Hope you don't mind, but it brings the colour of the Buddleia out.

 

[StandbySetting]

Thanks Ian, I'll have a play in Picassa and see what I can come up with.

 

[Rorie]

Get lightroom 3 by adobe! It is the dogs crystals! Every time someone at work asks me about taking photos, how to work their cameras, what ever, i always seem to go into a sales pitch (for which i obviously get nothing out of) about lightroom!

First off - shoot in RAW, not JPG
Secondly - get Lightroom 3!

When you take as many photos as i do, it is just amazing how much simpler it makes your life! The way to think of it is that it deals with the inporting, filing, sorting, printing and publishing of your photos. On top of that, the 'developing' section allows you to make global changes to your photo, where as photoshop would be making local, small changes to your photo.

As for your photo, it is a good subject, but just framed a little off i think. And its over exposed (too bright) which is what has been mentioned before - look at your histogram will help you with that. This object is clearly near you, so you can experiment. Rather than just walking closer, try different things - get low, shoot up, shoot down, take hundreds of photos! Then, when you get to your computer (using lightroom of course) go though and be a harsh bit@h on your photos. That 'delete' key becomes your friend! Keep AMAZING photos, ditch 'ok' ones. My opinion of course! IMO, you should only have one photo of each thing. One photo should make you think 'thats the one'

My advice for this photo - the object is that purple bud, right? I bet it has great texture and loads to look at. So bring the focus into it....i dont mean 2 steps closer, i mean fill the frame!! Keep what ever else is nice in there, but have a bud as the main object. Play with your aperture - that will dictate what is in focus and what is not. Try the extremes (f 4 is maybe the least in a more basic lens, f 22 in the other end. f/22 will give you 'everything' in focus. Great for scenic, panoramic etc, but not when there is one thing of interest. It looks like it was this end of the scale you used it in. F/4 will only focus on the one object. Everything else will be blurred. You can blur too much though, so be careful. Hence i was saying play about.

Sorry for the shameless plug here, but its a good example - on my website *cough cough* go onto here. Look at the 9rd photo of the owl flying. The background is all in focus, but it works in this case. Where as a photo further down of the toucan has the background all blurred. This was needed to bring the amazing colours into the picture more....though i dont think to highly of the photos in that part of the portfolio....they will be deleted soon haha.

Your obviously getting a lot of advice on here which is great. Just ask away, and play away with your camera to discover how YOU want to take photos!!

 

[StandbySetting]

Thanks Rorie, I've just been out in the garden, flowers are easy targets as they don't move...unless there's a breeze as there was in my case Anyway, a few of the shots are out of focus but most of them I'm please with, especially the ones of my cat:

 

[Rorie]

MUCH better! Don't you think?! Well done.

The trick to get flowers to sit still....take the photos of flowers indoors....though taking them indoors kinda defeats the purpose! Faster shutter speed to 'freeze' them. but this will mean using a higher f number..... so play about

 

[StandbySetting]

Thanks Rorie, I had another play this afternoon, getting there but still not perfect:

I quite like this one, shame the Hover Fly isn't in focus though, the bloody things never stay still!

This one is a little out of focus but not bad by my standards:

My cat:

 

[markandhisfish]

focus seems to be your main shortfall at the moment . are you using manual focus or autofocus? but your results are deffinately improving , good job the closeup of the fly that is oof could be camera shake /movement . handheld work like that requires a higher shutter speed generally when you are working up close the slightest movement is greatly magnified .

 

[StandbySetting]

Thanks Mark, I used a combination of both, but for the Flies I did use manual focus which is why they're a bit out. To get the shots of the Flies I took the shot from about a foot away using the manual focus as the camera can't autofocus them due to the distance away, then I crop the remainder out with just the fly in the shot, I went into Jessops this week and had a look at a few lenses so I'm currently saving for a Tamron macro lens.

 

[markandhisfish]

when you use manual focus are you doing it with the shutter button half pressed? if so then apologies for telling you something youl know but if not half press the shutter and manual focus , you should get a focus confirmation light in the bottom right hand corner of the viewfinder ( assuming yours is layed out the same as mine)

 

[StandbySetting]

I've not tried that but will give it a go, thanks.

 

[Ace Of Spades]

My cat:

Perviest cat of the year award goes to...