My FIRST photos - C&C if you please !

[Crollo]

I like #1 - it makes me sad a little - the cat's expression, I guess.

#2 looks like a bad scan from the lab to me. Like they (more than likely) just hit the auto adjustment button.

#3 - With the right aperture and/or shooting position, you can make that fence disappear.

The beauty of digital photography. You are the lab technician also! I am really tempted to try film but digital photography is just way too convenient!

Indeed, however that's not to say that the lab will automatically give you bad results, just so long as you get them developed at a good place and scan them yourselves, you are the technician.

 

[naptime]

Nap time, just a question, if your daughter gets uncalled for, mean spirited snobbish CC, will the protective father be able to refrain from going crazy and keep his cool ????

of course !!

i let her know what to expect. MOST people will give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, aimed at helping her better herself as a photographer. and there will just be some that are just plain rude. she's prepared for it. and i'll kindly just let those people know that they don't have to comment if they dont want to.

 

[naptime]

Nap time, just a question, if your daughter gets uncalled for, mean spirited snobbish CC, will the protective father be able to refrain from going crazy and keep his cool ????

Let me take care of that right off the bat.The daughter seems to have a better eyes than the father. Plus she's shooting with film.Unlike the father, she didn't opt to take the " easier" way out.The daughter in my eyes, is stealing the ole mans glory. lolBesides that, if folks decide to get nasty with these two, I don't mind going on another vacation, again. lol

Lmao ! But hey wait.... I'm shooting with film too. I did.t take the easy way out! Although.... I have been reading and researching for two months more than her ! Not that its doing me any good apparently. Lol

 

[YoungPhotographer16]

Thanks your for comments . I will try harder! LOL. I've taken some pictures of my sister at the park .... I think she's going to be my main subject . Photos won't be uploaded for a while.

 

[naptime]

Thanks your for comments . I will try harder! LOL. I've taken some pictures of my sister at the park .... I think she's going to be my main subject . Photos won't be uploaded for a while.

I'll get you a wide angle lens so you can fit her forehead.

 

[YoungPhotographer16]

Whoa whoa. Don't be dogin' on my sister now! LOL

 

[ConradM]

Thanks your for comments . I will try harder! LOL. I've taken some pictures of my sister at the park .... I think she's going to be my main subject . Photos won't be uploaded for a while.

I'll get you a wide angle lens so you can fit her forehead.

:lmao:

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Nap time, just a question, if your daughter gets uncalled for, mean spirited snobbish CC, will the protective father be able to refrain from going crazy and keep his cool ????

of course !!

i let her know what to expect. MOST people will give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, aimed at helping her better herself as a photographer. and there will just be some that are just plain rude. she's prepared for it. and i'll kindly just let those people know that they don't have to comment if they dont want to.

Good question. Everyone seems to be on their tippy toes, walking on eggs, etc... And good answer from Dad.

As far as I'm concerned, I'll be just like with any one else. And Asia, that means I don't care that you are only 16. There are 16 y.o photogs who are better than 53 y.o. ones (that's me). Age has nothing to do with how good you are or not. Believe me, I watch what the younger guys (and gals) are doing very closely because they tend to have a much fresher way to look at things. New things more often come from the younger crowd than from the old farts like me. Now, you are lucky to start in this hobby with your Dad because you will have the advantage of having an older person's view of things to mix in with your younger one. But no matter what an old fart he is age wise, he is not photo wise since he is learning along with you and that could be very interesting for the both of you.

That said, your shots suck.

But it's no wonder at this stage. And there are always positives to get out of the negative.

#1 Although the shallow DOF is nice, do you know what created it? The main problem with this image, mostly taken care of by the tighter crop someone showed you, is that it's tilted and thare's a nasty kind of line growing out of her ear. The cute factor will only take you so far. One thing though, cats can be much easier models than sisters

#2 Boring composition, badly cut neck. The exposure problem may not be yours as was shown. You guys (you and your Dad) are going to learn to examine negs and figure them out. It is not a good idea to go by scans by cheap developping places. Off topic = Is music not an option for a carreer?

#3 Zoo shooting can be very challenging and a great exercise. As you were told earlier, get right against the fence, if possible, and it will disappear. Next time you go to the zoo, decide first what you want to achieve. Either try and show the animals as if they were free or try and show us the horror of life in the zoo for the animals. I don't mean you need to find an animal being mistreated. Most zoo animals show us their distress openly but it is not so easy to portray. Try it.

Overall, if there is nothing here to write home about, you are not doing bad at all for a first time.

Now, I have to go find your Dad's first shots, lol.

 

[YoungPhotographer16]

Thank you for your honesty.

 

[naptime]

great advice.

my "eye" is not developed yet of course, so i didn't even notice the door handle or the cocked cabinet. but once you mention it, it stands right out.

i did however let her know that someone would probably point out the cropped violin neck. we had a brief discussion last night about having the whole subject in the photo (of course i only know this because i've read it here so much)


while we were driving to the zoo, i was telling her about some of the recent threads and some of the banter back and forth about shooting in a zoo versus shooting animals in their natural habitat. also filled her in on "it's looking the wrong way."

after we got to the zoo and had so much difficulty, we both joked that there is NOTHING easy about shooting at the zoo !!! lol

the animals wouldn't listen to us. they wouldn't do what we wanted them to do, or when. as soon as we would compose a shot, they would move. or i would try to zoom in on a far away animal, and then they would suddenly move closer and throw everything out of whack. and the stupid fences. toledo has one of the nicest zoo's in the country, but we have fences and guard rails etc... in our shots with fences, it's because there is also a guard rail 3 feet in front of the fence. we had such a hard time trying to focus the fence out.

i'm sure it can be done, perhaps even with our cameras and our lenses. we were just too new to figure it out.

and, we shot everything yesterday on full auto.

 

[naptime]

#1 Although the shallow DOF is nice, do you know what created it?

no. what?

i'm having a hard time figuring this out. even though i'd read. for some reason i am not grasping it.

i know to go in an adjust the aperture setting.. and i have figured out that when the lens is at its widest, we can get the lowest setting.. ie: 4.0 and when its at max zoom we can get higher ie 5.6 and our cameras have a dof preview button, but all it seems to do is make the image dark in the viewfinder??

and i can not seem to get it to go lower than 4.0 i see on other peoples photos that maybe they used 1.8 or 2 etc... but i cant get ours lower than 4.0. i believe this is a limitation of our kit lenses?

 

[Josh66]

our cameras have a dof preview button, but all it seems to do is make the image dark in the viewfinder??

and i can not seem to get it to go lower than 4.0 i see on other peoples photos that maybe they used 1.8 or 2 etc... but i cant get ours lower than 4.0. i believe this is a limitation of our kit lenses?

Yes, that is a limitation of the lens.

When you press the DOF preview button, the aperture blades are stopping down to whatever aperture you have selected - that's why it gets dark (look at the front of the lens next time you press it). Pay attention to what's in focus and what isn't when you press the button.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

no. what?

It's actually pretty simple. The wider the aperture, the least DOF you have. The narrower the aperture, the most DOF you have. Of course, nothing is that simple so there are other things that come into play but, for right this minute, this is enough to understand. Asia got a DOF that works nicely with the picture of the cat, a shallow DOF, because she used a wide aperture. Most probably because there wasn't enough light otherwise

Now, where this is no so common sensical is that the widest aperture is the smallest number on your lens (in your case, it sounds like it's 4.0) while the narrowest aperture is the biggest number. Let's say you have a lens with an aperture running from f2.8 to f11, f2.8 is the widest (lets in the most light) while f11 is the narrowest (lets in the least light) and where DOF is concerned, f2.8 will give you the shallowest DOF while f11 will give you the deepest one.

Now, with the zoom you seem to describe you have what is known as variable aperture. It means that the widest aperture varies depending on the focal length you are set at. I guess you were using the Quantaray 70-300 1:4.0-5.6. What that means is that at the 70mm end of the zoom its max aperture is f4.0 (1:4.0 means the same) but at the 300mm end, it has now become f5.6.

This is very common with cheaper zooms. Constant aperture zooms are way more expensive but they would have the same max aperture at both end of the focal length.

What you've seen on other people's shot is faster lenses being used. What is known as a faster lens is one that lets you shoot with less light, one with a wider aperture. F2.8 is faster than yours. But there are even faster ones. As they get faster they get more expensive however so that a lot of kit lenses are in about the same range as yours.

And that's enough for that right now. Any question?

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Off topic now: You guys are going to be fun teaching to. I don't remember ever having a parent/child duo in any of my workshops but I think it's going to be interesting. But I'm not so sure that Dad will be slower picking things up. A lot of what we do in photo is directly related to what is being done in printing, including screen-printing, so that Dad may take a bit longer to put 2 and 2 together but once he does, he will apply it faster to what is going on.

 

[Sean1965]

Isn't there an exposure trick to being able to get rid of the fence in the way you shoot a picture?