New to the photo game, question about getting the best quality shot

[ethanrheault]

So I'm very new to photography but very interested in learning. I have a sony a55 and was wondering how to get the best quality shot with the camera that I have. It has the stock lens which is just an 18-55mm.

Below is an example shot I have taken and I'm wondering, is it me, the camera, or maybe the conditions of the day(cloudy and just before nightfall), that have caused the image to be a little grainy and well less than stellar. I appreciate any kind of tips you guys might have for me, thank you.

 

[Gavjenks]

Welcome to TPF!
There are a lot of things wrong with this, but good on you for posting it and asking!!! That's the best way to improve.

1) SEVERELY underexposed, by like, I dunno 3-4 stops maybe? You need longer shutter or wider aperture or higher ISO by that much.
2) Really blue - this is a white balance issue. Your camera should have settings for white balance, check your manual and look up that term for more information. It has to do with centering your colorspace so that whites are white. You can do it in camera for jpegs, or if you shoot RAW format (more data in camera, choosing what part of it you want to keep later on the computer), you can adjust color there too.
3) Really really noisy and static-y. This is usually from a very high ISO value. If you're shooting at ISO 1600+ on a small sensor camera like yours, you might get this amount of noise. Lower ISO = cleaner.

Please post the settings you had for this shot? Was this in the middle of the night or something? I'm not sure how you managed to get ISO so high and still underexpose by several stops if it's daytime. Were you at some extremely small aperture like f/22 AND 1/4000th of a second or something? Knowing what you shot at will really help. It looks like you might have indeed had a pretty small aperture from how crisp the trees look.

If this was a normal sunny day, I probably would have shot it at around f/4 (large-ish, but not very large, to help get focus while in action, while still letting in a lot of light and blurring the background a bit), ISO 100, 1/1600th of a second, if using natural light only. For starters. If the action was too fast for that shutter speed, I would increase to ISO 200, 1/3200th of a second. If it were at NIGHT, I would not attempt this at all, without having a setup of good strobe lights to do all of the lighting for the shot from all angles.



Also, if you fixed all the above issues, you'd still also want to fill more of the frame with your subject, and to get rid of some distractions like those trees (wider aperture would help blur them out), and you want the face of your subject to be bright and attention-drawing, which it isn't here compared to the snow, etc. (Flash or a different angle would help)

For example, I can't see much of the scene here, but I would have considered standing almost inside that wooden ramp (to avoid bodily harm) but still super close to the action, and then pointed my camera mostly upward, to frame the guy mid trick against the sky for minimal distractions. Using a wideish angle lens to emphasize in-your-face-ness by making the board and snow shock over-large. Maybe include some trees and snow framing him underneath and around for context, but not behind. And if there were more than one ramp, I'd either choose one where his face is toward the sun to light him well if I had no flash, or possibly backlit if I did have flash to light him up and allow for a more dramatic backdrop

 

[weepete]

It's mainly the lighting conditions. The grainyness (or rather digital noise) in your pic is probably due to the camera picking a high ISO to cope with the conditions. Cameras generally can't see as well in low light conditions than our eyes can so what seems like ok light can be quite dim to the camera. With fast action shots and to freeze motion you need a really fast shutter speed too. In this kind of situation I'd probably start from 1/1000 of a second (to give you an idea) and either dial it up or down depending on just how much blur I wanted. If it's not too distracting a flash can work really well with these kind of shots and allows you control over lighting and the action though you'll need to read up on it a bit more.

This shot also has white balance issues (blue snow) and is generally underexposed. Have a wee read about the exposure triangle and also stopping motion (once you know how you can then make creative decisions on how much blur you want).

 

[weepete]

Damn, I gotta learn to type faster!

 

[table1349]

Buy this and read it:
Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera: Bryan Peterson: 0884798534707: Amazon.com: Books

 

[CaptainNapalm]

What Gavjenks said. However, I don't think you had much choice in alternative setting options if you were trying to shoot a fast moving subject in low light with a kit lens and crop sensor camera. To improve on this shot you'll likely need a faster lens (one that opens up to f/1.8 or 2.8 at least) or a better camera with a sensor that handles higher ISOs better, or both.

 

[ethanrheault]

Thank you guys for all the help, I'm learning so much already.

So I took a look at the settings I had and the display reads as follow, 1/4000 F6.3 ISO12800

If I am understanding this correctly then my shutter speed was pretty high, my diaphragm was too small, and my ISO was too high? It was shot at about 4:00 eastern time a couple of weeks ago so it was getting close to dark out and it was a cloudy day. It also sounds like with the lens I have that I should have been a lot closer to my subject and definitely seems like the trees are of bit of a distraction from the rest of the photo. My intentions were to shoot my rider so that he could be clearly visible (helmet, facial expressions, jacket, pants, snowboard, etc.) and to capture the, in his words, "dope ass wall ride" for a cool action photo he could post all over facebook. Very appreciative of all the great feedback, keep it coming!