Some yellow...

Dioboleque · Apr 28, 2008

Some yellow... these are recent and were taken with my new FZ18 :sillysmi: Aslo... any help, comments, or critique anyone wants to give would be great... I have lots of flower pics, i understand they are not the most interesting thing out there, but i like them, so i would like to know how they can be improved... so far I've been told to try to use natural light rather than flash... none of these used flash.

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4.

emptypockets · Apr 28, 2008

Another FZ18 user huh? Excellent camera for the dough...I've been very pleased with the results of mine. Check out my posts to see what I've done, I think you'll be impressed!

The shots are really well composed overall and I agree that not using the flash works best. In general, they all seem a little dark to me. Try playing with the brightness and exposure to bring them back. Also, try increasing the saturation some to make the colors pop. #'s 1 and 2 have excellent DOF. Something seems a little off about the crop in #4, especially the branches on the right.

I'm curious to know what settings you were using with your camera in these shots. Overall, they're very nicely done. You'll be very impressed with the results of the FZ18 with a little practice. Keep up the good work!!

Dioboleque · Apr 28, 2008

Thanks for the comment!

1 & 2 were not in direct sunlight when I took them, so that may be why they look darker... I've been trying so hard not to blow out the highlights maybe i'm underexposing them? All the EXIF data is on my flickr... and as for the 'branches' in #4, it's part of the bottom of the palm tree that was directly next to the flowers... i guess it didn't bother me cause i knew what it was, but my main focus in the composition of #4 was to get all 3 flowers without centering them in the frame... so many things to keep in mind when learning... I don't have a PS program so the pics here (and all my pics) have no post processing... my cam can do RAW and came with a program for doing those, but I know NOTHING about it or how to use it... maybe it's time to learn? Have u used RAW or the Silkypix? (i think that's what it was called) Would that make a worthwhile diff? How hard is it to learn? Would I be better off just bumping the in camera settings (sharpness, contrast, saturation, noise reduction) or getting (and learning) photoshop? How long do they take to process? I guess these are really questions for another area... :sillysmi:

NateS · Apr 28, 2008

Photos look okay, but a little bland to me and the shadows in the last 2 kills it.

I really disagree about the flash. I started using off camera flash for some flower shots and they are tons, tons better than available light. You can really get some cool effects with off camera flash and it turns out much better than just available light (in my opinion).

I do agree to not use the onboard flash, but off camera flash is a big thumbs up from me.

emptypockets · Apr 28, 2008

I shoot almost exclusively in RAW, just because I don't like to use the camera's jpeg processing. I tried using Silkypix and it just doesn't do that much to edit or improve your shots. I would suggest using Adobe Elements, or something similar to edit your shots with. I bought the latest Elements version 6 for about $70 and it was well worth it! Good luck!