In my yard today. I'm tryimg to improve..please

[oldhippy]

back yard

front yard

please C&C Trying to improve

 

[SCraig]

Shoot a bit lower. I know, it's hard to do and I also know it's been messy in this part of the country today but it makes a big difference. Try to get at or below their eye level.

Look at the difference between the first and second. The first is a ho-hum shot of a goat. The second is a shot of a heron that's on alert for some reason. There is some interest in the second shot because of the tension caused by the birds alertness. The first shot is just a shot of a goat. Look for interest in your shots. A cocked head or them looking at something or doing something unusual. Just standing around looking half asleep is, well, just a snapshot.

Finally, the first is a bit dark around the face. The eyes are the point of focus for people and animals. They are what viewers normally look at first so they should grab the attention. In this case they are dark eyes buried in more dark. It's hard not to do with many animals since they frequently have brown eyes, but nobody said animal and wildlife photography was easy

Keep at it.

 

[oldhippy]

I thank much for responding. have a question if you have time. The box that shows the focus point is never quite where I want it..Do I need to focus better or change the focus selection, on my D5100
BTW That Heron was down in the creek . The next shot had her with a fish, but it was blury because of the head motion..thanks again..Ed

 

[SCraig]

You probably have "Predictive Focus Tracking" or "Dynamic Area Autofocus" or "3D Tracking Autofocus" enabled, all of which allow the camera to focus where it wants to instead of where you want it to. I'm not that familiar with the D5100, but from what I can tell in the owner's manual all three of those are automatically enabled any time the autofocus mode is set to AF-C and they are disabled any time the mode is set to AF-S. My D7000 has menu options to disable them but I didn't see anything to disable them on the D5100. They were the first thing I disabled when I bought that camera because I absolutely DETEST those settings. I do NOT want my camera deciding what to focus on, I'll tell it what I want it to focus on.

Perhaps someone who is more familiar with that camera can provide more information.

 

[oldhippy]

Thanks again, much appreciated...Ed