First flower photos. Critique?

[anubis404]

Here are my first photos taken with photography in mind. They are of flowers around my house and the neighbors front yard. What do you think?

 

[anubis404]

 

[anubis404]

 

[manaheim]

I might increase the depth of field a little bit (smaller aperature, bigger f/stop number). This would bring more of the flower into focus. Don't go too crazy or you'll get all the background stuff, too... Just maybe not QUITE as tight as you have it here.

 

[JerryPH]

DOF is important in some cases. What you want to do is get more of the flower in the pic clear, and blur the background.

Kinda like this:

 

[Slaphead]

Bees are of course optional ;-)

 

[anubis404]

Bees are of course optional ;-)

Ok lol . Keep in mind, I am using a 6.0 megapixel P&S, however I think it does have manual controls. I just need to learn to fool around with them. I actually took a lot of pics, but these were the best and most in focus. Its very hard to get the flower perfectly in focus using the macro mode, so should I try manually focusing it from now on, or stick with the macro?

 

[PuppY_K1ck3R]

Gorgeous

 

[TamiyaGuy]

Wow, considering the camera, those are some great pics! I would say stick to the automatic focus, but try taking the picture as soon as you hear the beep; if you so much as breathe, it can make the picture out of focus.

Great pics, keep it up!

 

[sultan]

Not bad at all for an ultra-compact P&S. Just try to increase the depth of field a bit by stopping down to around f/4.5. Low DOF is good but the subject must remain in focus.


For now, just try any manual controls that you can find. However, get an SLR; when people say that the camera doesn't matter, they mean that you don't need a Canon EOS-1Ds or a Nikon D3, an XTi or 40D or D40 etc. will do. They don't mean that an ultra-compact will be a good choice. Nevertheless, you can make great images even with a P&S.

Keep up the good work!

 

[anubis404]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I will most likely be getting an advanced P&S or a DSLR soon, I'm just getting my feet wet, and seeing what I can do with what I have. However, the manual focus is very hard to use, especially when you're looking at it on a 2 inch LCD in bright sunlight. I just used the macro focus for this, however it seemed to work out well. Hopefully, I'll have more up later.

 

[WynterWynd]

I think they're beautiful. But then again, I'm a sucker for beautiful flowers