Took pictures all day. Got one good shot.

[The Professor]

My first day shooting and I took 125 shots. 124 of them were either terrible or were no better than those from my $20 point and shoot.

But here's one shot that is pretty good:

For the geeks:
Canon EOS Rebel XSi 450D with (kit) EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8-f/5.6 IS.

F-stop: f/8
exp: 1/100
exp bias: 0 steps
ISO: 200
focal len: 42mm
metering mode: pattern
no flash

 

[puyjapin]

i like the hair all over the beak tip! nice shot

 

[ATXshots]

Man, that thing is ugly! Good shot though.

 

[Star_Climber]

It's a good one

 

[TwoRails]

How did you get a shot of my x-girlfriend?? - nice shot.

 

[Jaszek]

Pretty good, you might want to try to bring out the colors more in PP b/c this one seems a bit washed out. And don't worry about most of your shots being crappy. The first few days you will shoot anything you see interesting just to get a feel and confidence with the camera.

 

[linpelk]

How did you get a shot of my x-girlfriend?? - nice shot.

hilarious!


Nice shot. I too agree that you could bring out the colors a bit in Photoshop and make it more beautifully ugly.

 

[Overread]

hmm I did this:

first step was a levels edit - I used the auto setting and it removed a lot of the haze which is present in the original. Following on from that I adjusted the brightness and contrast a little (not much contrast can be added otherwise you start to lose the details in the eye which you don't want to lose). After that there was a very minor boost in saturation to bring the colours out a bit more. Also I used the unsharpen mask to get a bit more sharpness out of the shot;

Brightness + 18
contrast +5
saturation + 5
sharpening settings in unsharpen mask
amount 86
radius 0.8
threshold 4

I used photoshop elements for the editing (its all I have for edits)

as for the keeper rate don't worry about it - just shoot, experiment and learn - even a failed shot can teach you things. It teaches you what not to use in a given situation or that the effect is not complimenting the subject - one can learn a lot from mistakes (oh and don't let people with film cameras say they were any better when learning - they just had that added pressure to learning that each shot cost them money!)

 

[Ptyler22]

Were your other shots no good because they were blurry? I ask because the shutter speed in that keeper was 1/100 and if the turkeys were moving around, 1/100 might not be quite high enough to freeze them. If you raise the ISO to 400 or even up to 800, the shutter speed would be higher and the pictures would be sharper, with much less blur.

 

[The Professor]

The kit lens is image-stabilized (IS) so not too many were blurry. Only some with the macro lens (which isn't IS) where I used manual focus were blurry. I had lighting problems, depth of field problems, composition problems, focused on wrong thing, etc, etc.

My macro lens (60mm f/2.6) is going to require some additional lighting for my desktop. I'll have to find something that uses a minimum footprint but can still throw tons of light (so I can crank the aperture small and get maximum DOF when required).

Mostly I want to take close ups (hence the macro) and use my tripod. But I was playing in the yard with one of our dogs and I got this lucky shot.

 

[Micah]

I shot 102 shots today and didnt get one good one. I am as green as they come and I was just trying out my new lenses. I thought I had a few good bird shots untill I looked at them at 100%. Who knew this photography suff could be so hard. Good shot btw.

 

[anubis404]

Its a good shot, but it looks a little flat, undercontrasted, and could probably be a little sharper.

 

[Overread]

hmm lets have a look at some of the failed shots - those with the tech info and shooting conditions. Image blur comes not only from hand movement but can also come from the movement of the subject as well.

 

[Mgw189]

Quit looking at shots as bad remember than just because you dont like a photo doesnt mean it is bad. Look at those shots and see what you did. Look at the settings and composition and learn from those mistakes. Look at them and go what if....

 

[DexGtr]

it needs a shave!