A rope and a puppy. C&C Welcomed!

[phiya]

I was in beautiful Crescent City, California this past week for work, however I ended up coming down with a cold and was only able to go out and shoot the first night we were there. C&C as always, is welcomed and encouraged.

Here's one I took, and if interested I'm posting another down in the HDR section of the forum after this.


Rope-1 by Ricky Jay, on Flickr

And this is one of the new puppy my wife and I got last weekend. This is Jackson, the St. Bernard.

Jackson-1 by Ricky Jay, on Flickr

 

[Greasy]

I saw the title and was hoping the two weren't included in the same picture... I was going to give PETA a call.


Cute dog!

 

[o hey tyler]

Yeah, totally thought you hung a puppy.

Glad you didn't though. :thumbup:

 

[phiya]

I think you guys have some sick minds... puppies like to play with ropes, chew on them, etc. Who on God's green earth would have it in them to hang a puppy?

 

[o hey tyler]

I think you guys have some sick minds... puppies like to play with ropes, chew on them, etc. Who on God's green earth would have it in them to hang a puppy?

It's all about context. That's why it sounded so awful.

Like purchasing a single metal coat hanger and a pregnancy test at the same time. Even if you've been trying to have a child for a very long time, and one of your hangers recently broke, it will still look bad to the cashier.

 

[phiya]

I feel you... the more I look at the rope picture, the less I like it. I think it has some bad CA or something going on... I can't quite figure it out, but it's just not right.

 

[KmH]

I feel you... the more I look at the rope picture, the less I like it. I think it has some bad CA or something going on... I can't quite figure it out, but it's just not right.

I didn't like it from the beginning.

The shallow DOF looks way over done and the composition has me scratching my head in wonder. Maybe if you explained what your intentions were it would become clearer.

 

[phiya]

I feel you... the more I look at the rope picture, the less I like it. I think it has some bad CA or something going on... I can't quite figure it out, but it's just not right.

I didn't like it from the beginning.

The shallow DOF looks way over done and the composition has me scratching my head in wonder. Maybe if you explained what your intentions were it would become clearer.

I'm not sure that there were a lot of premeditated intentions going into that photo, other than I was trying to utilize my SB-600 and control exposure over the entire shot. I feel like I did that well enough, but the crispy sharpness I was hoping for didn't turn out. I missed, oh well. Compositionally while I would have liked a larger DOF, it wasn't really an option hand held at dusk; and even so it didn't work out. Live and learn, how about the pup though? I actually really like that shot.

 

[KmH]

Compositionally while I would have liked a larger DOF, it wasn't really an option hand held at dusk; and even so it didn't work out.

When you are using strobed light, controlling the exposure is a 2 pronged approach.

Shutter speed controls the ambient light exposure, aperture controls the strobed light exposure.

If you need deeper DOF just turn up the speedlight's power output as you make the aperture smaller.

A stop of strobed light, is the same as a stop of aperture.

 

[phiya]

This is true, but my strobe wasn't going to light the background, sky, building etc. So while I would have gotten likely better results with my DOF, It wouldn't have mattered much because the background would have been underexposed anyway.

 

[kundalini]

I'm not sure that there were a lot of premeditated intentions going into that photo, ........

BAM! Thus you were delivered a snapshot.

If you need further excuses in the future, let me know. I have a bag full of them.

 

[kundalini]

This is true, but my strobe wasn't going to light the background, sky, building etc. So while I would have gotten likely better results with my DOF, It wouldn't have mattered much because the background would have been underexposed anyway.

Not really. Expose for the background and let your flash expose for the subject.

With flash you are effectively making two exposures. Re-read Keith's comment.

 

[jamesdavidboro]

I like the puppy shot. The dogs cute and has a nice expression and the Dofs good too. Theres something bothering me about the background though. I'm not sure if its the blue or the fact that theres two halves to it, one blue and one brown. Either way its distracting me from the lovely dog.

 

[phiya]

This is true, but my strobe wasn't going to light the background, sky, building etc. So while I would have gotten likely better results with my DOF, It wouldn't have mattered much because the background would have been underexposed anyway.

Not really. Expose for the background and let your flash expose for the subject.

With flash you are effectively making two exposures. Re-read Keith's comment.

But the shutter speed at F/3.8 was already at 1/8 which is REALLY pushing it hand held/bracing the camera & hand on a post. So again, I didn't feel I could stop down the aperture any more in that situation.

I did read his comment.

If you need deeper DOF just turn up the speedlight's power output as you make the aperture smaller.

This is partially correct... when your light isn't strong enough to expose the background you have to slow the shutter speed as well if you're going to stop down the aperture for a larger DOF, or am I crazy?

 

[KmH]

This is true, but my strobe wasn't going to light the background, sky, building etc. So while I would have gotten likely better results with my DOF, It wouldn't have mattered much because the background would have been underexposed anyway.

Then you've not glommed to the big advantage of using Strobed lighting.

You can incease the strobed light exposure by using a smaller aperture and more speedlight power and increase the ambient light (background)exposure by slowing the shutter speed. betteryet you can increase the strobed light exposure and get even better separation from the background by decreasing the ambient light exposure (increasing the shutter speed).

The whole point of blurring the background is to separate the subject from the background. You can do the same thing with the ambient light exposure.