My first pictures!

[Stevey]

Hey, everyone. I got my Hitachi HDC-1219E 12MP camera just yesterday and I've taken a couple of pictures. Just tell me your honest opinion and try not to be too harsh. Thanks!

And how do you focus in on some things?

 

[JasonLambert]

Reduce the size and post again... I shouldn't be able to type this and submit before the images load.

 

[Stevey]

I know I just did that sorry! Fixed now. I'll be taking better pics soon. Might take a walk around and take some of nature. =]

 

[cardinals1970]

Well the first two looks like you just walked out your front and back door and just snapped a pic without putting any thought in to it. The 3rd pic you should have cleaned the fish tank before even thinking about taking a pic of the fish in it.

Now as far as how to focus on things the first thing you should be doing is reading your manual that came with the camera.

 

[Stevey]

Ok, I know my first pictures weren't meant to be good ones I was just experimenting with the settings so I'm going to take some good ones now!!

 

[Stevey]

Here are my proper starter pictures!

 

[Raian-san]

The colors and quality of the pictures is really off. It look like you took a picture off your cell phone. If you're trying to go for the rusty vintage look, you should adjust your setting to capture the color better. Otherwise those colors are not very vibrant, not a way a dslr should look.

 

[cardinals1970]

A couple things on all 3 of them.

They all seem to be to have a lot of noise in them.

The subjects you were shooting are all dead center of the pic. One thing I have learned in my short time is most of the time you don't want your subject dead center. Most people here will tell you to read up on the rule of thirds.

 

[Stevey]

What do you mean by a lot of noise?

 

[Raian-san]

What do you mean by a lot of noise?

It means the picture is very grainy. Look closely and you see little white dots all over the picture. Now compare that with your first 2 pictures you first posted. The color are vibrant and clear. You can't see the noise *graininess* in those photos. The last 3 you posted are very grainy, and the colors are very dated.

 

[Stevey]

Oh right, I must have changed the settings then...Thanks for the comments guys

 

[ghache]

the caTT!!!??? he dosent have a.........
























































mouth

 

[Stevey]

He's a creepy cat..

 

[MrBarney]

Settings for the above:

Tv: 1/2000
Av: f/8 (it's a P&S - max aperture f/3.1)
Focal Length: 19.2mm (8.4mm - 19.2mm range, sorry I can't find 35mm conversion)
ISO: 1600 (max:1600)

Some things to think about:

Read up on ISO, aperture and shutter speeds, or "the exposure triangle / trinity" and understand how they interact, even if you still use the camera in auto or scene modes. Here your ISO is unnecessarily high and that is what is making the photos noisy. You could be at ISO200 easily here.

Try and make one thing the primary subject of the photo, either by size, colour, leading lines or other technique - in the cat photo he (she?) is a very small part of the photo and so doesn't really stand out.

Consider not only the object you are interested in, but the background and other intruding objects (like the cars, at the very least the one on the right, in the cat photo). Try and frame the photo so that they do not intrude.

Good luck, and keep taking photos!

 

[Sharpiks]

A tip I learned is you always want to shoot on the lowest ISO as you possibly can to prevent noise. To prevent blur and shakiness use a tripod, or a beanbag, or something else you can use to stabilize your camera.

As for your shutter speed, you should never have to shoot in 1/2000 for much of anything. I would start out using P-mode or Av, which is aperture priority. Look around here, as well. Once you think you have a firm grasp on what settings to use, go out and start setting your own in M, which is manual exposure.

Also, something else to think about. When taking a picture, ask yourself, "would I want this as a print?" or "would someone want this hanging on their wall?" also, ask yourself two very important questions: "Why should I take this image?" and "why shouldn't I take this image?"

Also, once more, when shooting, you tend to shoot more the emotion and feel of the scene. Not the scene itself. So try to capture the mood other than the actual scene itself. If someone feels as though they want to be in your picture, no matter what it looks like, or if it makes someone feel a sort of nameable emotion, it's a good photograph and has done it's job as art. I hope I've helped? I'm quite new myself.

Anyway, keep at it. Keep posting and asking for CC. You'll get better and by no time you'll be posting decent images that eventually will turn into works of art some day. Practice makes perfect - I've been improving my photography bit by bit by just going out, shooting, and posting them here asking for CC. I know I haven't been active recently, but I've sure been lurking. And I mean sure, the critique was harsh, I sometimes felt attacked, but as a newbie you just feel ganged up on. But it was very helpful in the long run. I'm not the greatest, but I'm sound with saying I've improved since I've joined in this short amount of time.

Note:
Owning a good camera doesn't make you a good photographer. It makes you the owner of a good camera that wont be used to it's full extent. Start off with a simple point-and-shoot camera (which I believe you have now. a Hitachi twelve mega pixel, right?) to get to know the settings and different features. I mean, I started out with a four mega pixel DCM-42 Gateway point-and-shoot camera. While most cell phone cameras have eight mega pixels.