First outing! C&C please!

[GregB]

Hi RxForB3, it is an exciting time when you are new to photography, and you are doing some interesting stuff.

However, I have some concerns with the gecko. I note that you are using a 50 mm f1.8 lens, and I suspect that you are shooting at or close
to wide open. As a consequence, you have a fairly shallow depth of field, and you are focussing on the gecko which is close, which means
that your depth of field is even shallower. So the gecko is in focus but everything else is not, and although the gecko is your son's favourite
stuffed animal, it is not interesting enough to be the only element in the photo to be in focus.

What can you do? You can be further back from the gecko, and stop down to f16 and focus on the nearest item past the gecko. At that aperture,
and with a focus point further away, much more of your photo will be in focus. The gecko may be a tad softer but that doesn't matter. Obviously
at f16 you will have a slower shutter speed so a tripod will be preferable (or stick the camera on something solid and set the self timer so you can
press the sutter and the camera has time to steady before the shot is taken)

Anyway, keep at it, the nightscapes are great, I like #2

cheers

Greg

 

[fokker]

Whoever told you to use a polarizing filter for any of these shots doesn't know what they're talking about, please politely ignore them.

To get rid of the ugly lens flare in these shots, you can either photoshop it out, use a different lens that controls flare better or stop down your lens more (narrower aperture gives less tendency to flare), or simply moe the bright spotlights outside of the frame. You could also try removing any UV filters which can make the problem worse.
I have a 28mm sigma lens which suffers from such bad flare that I can't do any night cityscape shots with it at all.

Seattle has an awesome skyline so keep practicing!

 

[RxForB3]

GregB, thanks for the suggestions! I was wondering why I couldn't get the space needle and the gecko both in focus. I'll try focusing past next time! I like the lighting of the gecko on the first one, so if I combine that with the focusing and aperture, it will hopefully turn out well I may have misunderstood something, though. By wide open, I take it to mean a higher aperture. Is that correct or do I have it backwards? I think maybe I should read more about depth of field!

Fokker, I definitely think I'm going to ignore the advice of that person. She seems well meaning, but I looked at some of the pictures from her business page (apparently she's a "professional"), and I wasn't that impressed.

Speaking of photoshop: I take it that Lightroom is considered a good program? And is the current sale price that much of a sale? It's something like $139 right now.

 

[GregB]

By wide open, I take it to mean a higher aperture. Is that correct or do I have it backwards? I think maybe I should read more about depth of field!

Aperture is just the size of the opening in your lens when the photo is taken. The larger the opening, the more light that gets in. Also, the larger the number (f stop) the smaller the opening.

The main f stops have a particular relationship to each other. For example, f 5.6 lets in exactly twice as much light as f 8.

By wide open, I mean f 1.8 That lets in the most light, but also results in the most shallow depth of field (good for portraits if you want the background to be out of focus for example)

The aperture and shutter speed (and the ISO but let's not get ahead of ourselves) determine exposure

f 4 and 1/500
f 5.6 and 1/250
f 8 and 1/125
f 11 and 1/60
f 16 and 1/30

all give exactly the same exposure but give different results. Depth of field is different, at slower shutter speeds you may need a tripod (a very rough rule of thumb is that the slowest shutter speed you can use handheld is the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens, 50 mm lens, slowest shutter speed 1/60, but it is just a guide)

So you have lots of f stop and shutter speed combination choices depending on what outcome you are after.

 

[RxForB3]

I think what threw me off was knowing a little too much without understanding enough I knew that aperture was the size of the opening and therefor directly related to the amount of light that gets in. However, I assumed that a wider opening would mean a larger (longer?) depth of focus. If I understand correctly, the inverse is true. This actually really puzzled me the other day because I was thinking an aperture of 16 should allow more light in than a 5.6, but the opposite was obviously true. I guess I'll have to do some more reading about it all to find out why a wider opening creates a smaller depth of field!