C&C please. Airlie Gardens

matt62485 · Mar 31, 2009

well, found out im going to have to take the ISO compensation off my d40 bc even set at 200 it seems it always wants to bump it up more than needed and i get noise.
heres the album link, theres a couple of swan/geese
airlie pictures by Dubkota - Photobucket

anyways, heres the best i could get these. lighting was pretty harsh

seems when i take one step forward, i take another step back. im not too happy with these, but what do you think? other than noise. particularities i need to work on

also, im come far too familiar with how limited the 18-55 and now cannot wait to get the finances to get a 70-300 or the like... just cant get close to birds, etc for a good enough shot.

EhJsNe · Mar 31, 2009

The first one seems oversaturated and is too soft.

the second one could use a different composition, its still good htough.

Third one, very good!

Fourth one seems rather dull, and the stem looks off, maybe if that flower was in the shot too, or if it wasnt in it at all.

Try taking pictures from all sorts of angles, even of the same thing, eventually itll be natural to take lots of pictures (darn....now you just HAVE to go out and take more pictures. lol)

matt62485 · Mar 31, 2009

EhJsNe said:
The first one seems oversaturated and is too soft.

the second one could use a different composition, its still good htough.

Third one, very good!

Fourth one seems rather dull, and the stem looks off, maybe if that flower was in the shot too, or if it wasnt in it at all.

Try taking pictures from all sorts of angles, even of the same thing, eventually itll be natural to take lots of pictures (darn....now you just HAVE to go out and take more pictures. lol)

thanks. yea i couldnt make up my mind about the saturation in 1, that was all PP by me, oops.

the 2nd one a lot of my friends/family seemed to like a lot, so i posted it. took it from a few angles.

third one, thanks, wish i had a macro lens though

the fourth one, lighting was kinda crap so hard to get that vivid color i was looking for. im really learning a lot, but get very frustrated when things dont come out like i wanted, and none of these really did

ive been working on angles, but for some reason i tend to like the same angles and PP them. ill work on PP some other angles from now on, thanks for your comments

matt62485 · Mar 31, 2009

my fiance loves this one, but my focus point was quiet off. man i hate being a noob

Sherman Banks · Mar 31, 2009

Pretty good shots Matt!
1. Looks fake, you pushed too hard on the color. There is a lot of noise here too.
2. Looks pretty good. Focus might have been tighter, and maybe shot from an angle that didn't have another flower right behind the central one. Also nice to have that yellow and blue in the photo.
3. Best shot! Lighting is great, your focus is tight, and great bokeh. My only recommendation would've been to get light on the bee for additional detail, and perhaps a different angle to showcase the detail in the flowers.
4. This one doesn't work for me compositionally. The extra stem you have in the photo leads the eye to the top of the frame and there isn't anything there. A crop could fix this but the remaining shot wouldn't hold much power without more detail from inside the flower.

Keep it up though, you're shots are improving more every post!

Turbo Wagon · Mar 31, 2009

i like

matt62485 · Mar 31, 2009

Sherman Banks said:
Pretty good shots Matt!
1. Looks fake, you pushed too hard on the color. There is a lot of noise here too.
2. Looks pretty good. Focus might have been tighter, and maybe shot from an angle that didn't have another flower right behind the central one. Also nice to have that yellow and blue in the photo.
3. Best shot! Lighting is great, your focus is tight, and great bokeh. My only recommendation would've been to get light on the bee for additional detail, and perhaps a different angle to showcase the detail in the flowers.
4. This one doesn't work for me compositionally. The extra stem you have in the photo leads the eye to the top of the frame and there isn't anything there. A crop could fix this but the remaining shot wouldn't hold much power without more detail from inside the flower.

Keep it up though, you're shots are improving more every post!

thanks a lot man, ive got this weekend off, so im going to spend some time practicing and hopefully take another step in my skill level/knowledge

1) yea, i went too heavy on the saturation, very noticable in the background. i still need to work on my editing skills. my eyes arent that keen yet, thanks for pointing that out. its noisy bc the camera bumped the iso to 1600, im going to manual from here on out

2) thanks, see... the flower behind the center one, good eye. ill pay more attn to these things from now on. it was pretty populated lil flower bed though. i was having a hard time chosing my focus points and getting a good focus reference, im getting better though

i wish there was a way to tell the camera what point to focus on of the 3 and let it auto focus, but it will only allow choice when it full manual focus

3) thanks! these bees have come out like crazy over the past week and pollen is insane, ive been trying to get a decent bee shot for a few days and finally my fiance was like "Matt! Bee.. and its not flying!!!" lol the people in the garden probably thought i was a retard running to get the shot. was a little rushed, so ill work on my angles and working under the fly better. :lol:

the bee was kind upside down so the light wasnt on him

i need lil reflectors or something to beam the light... ill tackle that another day another time when i conquer my formentioned task lol

4) i just liked the flower itself colorwise, youre right about the composition, i guess i couldve just left this one out

thanks again man for taking the time to CnC, your posts have been very helpful :thumbup:

Turbo Wagon said:
i like

thanks!

matt62485 · Mar 31, 2009

no C&C needed, but feel free to comment if you like.

i love this pic, not a good pic technically, but awesome subject matter imho. i love waterscape and pretty birds. im disappointed my 18-55 only got this close and i wasnt very far from the bird at all

Sherman Banks · Mar 31, 2009

matt62485 said:
i wish there was a way to tell the camera what point to focus on of the 3 and let it auto focus, but it will only allow choice when it full manual focus

I know on my D60, that when I press the left or right on the circular directional pad, it changes which focus point it uses, even in AF. You can tell on the LCD screen or the through the viewfinder which one you're using. I don't know if it works this way with the D40, but you may want to look into it. I imagine it's quite difficult not being able to choose where you want your camera to focus, even though 3 points isn't that great when it is working.

Turbo Wagon · Mar 31, 2009

thats the way it is on my d40x. did the stuff i posted on INC about the af menu not work on yours?

matt62485 · Apr 1, 2009

Turbo Wagon said:
thats the way it is on my d40x. did the stuff i posted on INC about the af menu not work on yours?

i tried and i couldnt get it to work, ill mess with it some more, likely user error :thumbdown:

ps- didnt even realize it was you! :lol:

edit: my dumb A had the camera focused on closest subject. couldve sworn i fixed this. oh well, all is working like it should now. thanks man

CraniumDesigns · Apr 1, 2009

i like #2 a lot, but i think the DOF could have been more shallow, to blur the background elements more. so use a bigger aperture next time (small number) like f/4 or f/5.6.

matt62485 · Apr 1, 2009

CraniumDesigns said:
i like #2 a lot, but i think the DOF could have been more shallow, to blur the background elements more. so use a bigger aperture next time (small number) like f/4 or f/5.6.

thanks. yea thats one thing i do understand is aperture/fstop and shutter speed. i dont remember what it was set on here but ill check the exif. thought i had it set for a deep DOF but obviously not. thanks again :thumbup: