Trying To Figure Out My Camera - C&C Please

Skedaddle · Jun 13, 2009

I received my Canon Rebel XSi 3 days ago and have been working with it every day. Here are some photos that I have taken with it. Let me know what you think.

(1) I used my 75-300mm lens for this shot. It was taken 2 days ago. Tripod was not used. My younger sister saw this little guy making his way down our street so we took him to a pond.

EXIF
ISO - 800
Exposure Time - 1/250 sec
Shutter Speed - 1/256 sec
F-Stop - f/6.30
Focal Length - 300.00 mm

(2) Took this shot with my 75-300mm lens. Taken 2 days ago. Tripod was not used. This is called a purple horsemint.

EXIF
ISO - 500
Exposure Time - 1/125 sec
Shutter Speed - 1/128 sec
F-Stop - f/5.00
Focal Length - 130.00 mm

(3) Used my 50mm lens for this shot. Took it just a couple of hours ago. Didn't use the tripod. This is another of my younger brothers.

EXIF
ISO - 400
Exposure Time - 1/200 sec
Shutter Speed - 1/197 sec
F-Stop - f/3.50
Focal Length - 50.00 mm

EhJsNe · Jun 13, 2009

how is your shutter speed and exposure time different?

Well....these are some cool pictures.

#1 I like the DOF, and you didnt go overboard with it...like I tend to do.....

#2 Well composed, like the colors.

#3 Excellent. The focus is on the eyes.

*HIGH FIVE!*

NIce job, keep it up dood.

KmH · Jun 13, 2009

It's just rounding off.

Nice images. I would prefer the flower stack to have about twice as much room on the right but that's really a minor point.

It doesn't look like you need much help. Time to move out of the beginners forum for critique. :thumbup:

paulk_68 · Jun 13, 2009

KmH said:
It's just rounding off.
It doesn't look like you need much help. Time to move out of the beginners forum for critique. :thumbup:

I'll second that. Skedaddle, I took a look at your stuff on flickr and could only find maybe 5 or 6 pictures out of 111 that I did not like,... that is very good! :thumbup:

Skedaddle · Jun 13, 2009

Thank you very much for the comments. I was not expecting this.

Anyone else?

Samanax · Jun 14, 2009

Good captures. I don't care for the second one much, but the first and third are very good. The portrait is really good.

Skedaddle · Jun 14, 2009

Thanks for the commernts.

What about the second one do you not like Samanax?

ccssk8ter11 · Jun 14, 2009

I really like the 2nd one.

Samanax · Jun 14, 2009

Skedaddle said:
What about the second one do you not like Samanax?

There's a lot of stuff going on in this shot and it's like there is no main subject. It might work better if the flower took up more of the frame and didn't include all that other busy stuff below the flower. The orange seeds are distracting. The background is busy too...a shallower DOF would have put the background more out of focus.

Skedaddle · Jun 14, 2009

I had been wondering if the seeds would be too distracting.

As for the DOF, I would have needed to use a different lens because that was as shallow as I could ger with the 75-300mm lens. I could try and blur the background more in photoshop though. Thank you for answering my question.

Thank you for the comment ccssk8ter11.

Samanax · Jun 14, 2009

Skedaddle said:
As for the DOF, I would have needed to use a different lens because that was as shallow as I could ger with the 75-300mm lens.

DOF is affected by 4 things...aperture size (low f/stop, wide opening = shallow DOF...high f/stop, narrow opening = deep DOF), focal length (longer lenses reduce DOF, shorter lenses give you more DOF), distance between camera and subject (the closer you get to the subject, the shallower the DOF gets...the farther you get from the subject, the DOF gets deeper) and subject and distance between subject and background (the farther from the subject the background is, the more blur you get).

If you shot that flower at the MFD (minimum focus distance) for that lens I bet the DOF would have been pretty shallow and you'd have gotten a very nice OOF blur of the background. Something to try next time you're out shooting.

Skedaddle · Jun 14, 2009

The minimum distance with that lens is 4.9 feet. I'm pretty sure I was at the minimum distance and then I zoomed in so I could get closer. I actually try to shoot at the MFD when I can. I think one reason that the background is more busy that I would have liked is because all the other weeds and plants were extremely close to the flower. Next time I'll try shotting one using a different lens with a lower aperture and make sure I shoot it at MFD. Thank you for the tip. It was very helpful and informative.

musicaleCA · Jun 14, 2009

Shooting with your 50mm might be a good choice for that shot. Then you can get a really open aperture. Though for the 50's, on a crop frame, at the MFD and around f2.0, the DoF is reduced to zero (having the 80mm effective focal length should, in most cases I find, be enough to compensate for this issue though, because you'll be busy backing-up to fill the frame). It's odd, but that's what happens. Watch out for that because it might result in some of your images going soft if you don't.