Noob photos

[HomerSimpson]

Hey people, can I get some feedback on some photos that I have taken over the past few months..any constructive criticism is appreciated, most of the pictures are taken at home as I've been too busy really to take my camera places but that is about to change. Also, is it just me or do any of you find that sometimes what you THINK will make a great picture actually doesn't? One of the main things I've learnt about taking pictures is that I should open my eyes more, that there is more to taking pictures than macro's. Also, what programmes do you use for editing? I currently just change the contrast and the midtones a bit but will I need to do that as much if I start shooting on manual mode?

Anyway, here are the pics..

 

[HomerSimpson]

Hmm..that bad hey?

 

[Josh66]

I like the 6th one (the one with what looks like some kind of lid with water on it), what is it?

It has a few dust specks or something on it, but that would be pretty easy to clone out.

In #9 (lettuce in the bowl) focus looks like it's on the bowl, not the lettuce. I think it would look better if the lettuce was in focus with the bowl slightly out of focus.

 

[stubbsk]

The rain on the metal works well and the cullinder is nice.

Now I wouldn't worry about editing your pics, you just need to take as many as you can every day so that you develop an eye for photography. If you feel like you need to edit them though start messing around with colour, i think your greens look too blue which always annoys me when I take pictures of plants. What program are you using?

 

[HomerSimpson]

I like the 6th one (the one with what looks like some kind of lid with water on it), what is it?

It has a few dust specks or something on it, but that would be pretty easy to clone out.

In #9 (lettuce in the bowl) focus looks like it's on the bowl, not the lettuce. I think it would look better if the lettuce was in focus with the bowl slightly out of focus.

That is my kitchen bin that got left outside during an downpour, I darkened the rest of the photo so the attention was on the lid.

For the spinach I kinda wanted to contrast the man made steel and the natural spinach, I wasn't really aware of keeping either in focus..how would I do that?

 

[HomerSimpson]

The rain on the metal works well and the cullinder is nice.

Now I wouldn't worry about editing your pics, you just need to take as many as you can every day so that you develop an eye for photography. If you feel like you need to edit them though start messing around with colour, i think your greens look too blue which always annoys me when I take pictures of plants. What program are you using?

How do you mean too blue? How would I fix that?

I'm currently using something really basic, I think it's Microsoft Picture Viewer or something, it lets me autocorrect the picture, change the midtone, brightness, contrast and also the colours in each pic.

 

[Vivienne]

Some of your photos are a bit out of focus.
I really like this one, it's really great!

Maybe you can number you photos next time..

 

[HomerSimpson]

Thanks

Yeah, I seem to have a problem with focusing sometimes, how do you suggest I improve that?

I've got a pretty oldish camera so I don't think it has any stabilisers on it.

Numbering pictures would have been the sensible thing to do, sorry!

 

[julius]

Thanks

Yeah, I seem to have a problem with focusing sometimes, how do you suggest I improve that?

I've got a pretty oldish camera so I don't think it has any stabilisers on it.

Numbering pictures would have been the sensible thing to do, sorry!

what type of camera do you have? does it have autofocus?

stabilisers and other techniques would improve motion blur but if something is out of focus to begin with it will never be sharp. in low light if you use autofocus your camera may seek for a little while and just accept an arrangement that is actually quite soft.

if you are having problems with motion blur you can increase the ISO, widen the aperture, use flash or other light sources, use a tripod

 

[HomerSimpson]

what type of camera do you have? does it have autofocus?

stabilisers and other techniques would improve motion blur but if something is out of focus to begin with it will never be sharp. in low light if you use autofocus your camera may seek for a little while and just accept an arrangement that is actually quite soft.

if you are having problems with motion blur you can increase the ISO, widen the aperture, use flash or other light sources, use a tripod

I've got a digital point and shoot, sony p73.

How does autofocus work exactly? I normally ignore it and make my own main point of focus.

How do you mean quite soft? Out of focus?

I find that when I increase the ISO I get super grainy pics.

 

[stubbsk]

a soft picture can occur from blur or dof (depth of field). You can get blur from a moving subject or from camera shake. You get dof when the aperture is low, for example f2.8 where the hole in the lens is opened really wide like your eye in a dark room. When It's wide like this more light reaches the digital sensor during the exposure. Now I doubt you have much control over your focus but in low light your camera will automatically use a large aperture(low number like f2.8 instead of f22) to allow as much light in as possible. A down side to this is that only a single area of an image can be in focus when the camera is close to the subject when compared to bright sunlight with the subject far away from the camera like in a landscape. SO you have to make sure your focused before you press the shutter. I have no idea what your camera is like but I bet you have to gently press the shutter button to focus before follow pressing it to take the shot. Experiment and try to get as much light in the shot as possible.

Sorry if I went of at a tangent or if It sounds patronizing or really confusing. feel free to send me a message if you need any specific help.

What I mean by it looking too blue is that the green looks cold, if it looked warm the green would look yellow. But color is relative so it would look green next to blue but it would look blue next to yellow. To alter this you would have to start using a better software package. Gimp is the first choice for free decent image editing "I think". I'd start there.

 

[Vivienne]

Thanks

Yeah, I seem to have a problem with focusing sometimes, how do you suggest I improve that?

I've got a pretty oldish camera so I don't think it has any stabilisers on it.

Numbering pictures would have been the sensible thing to do, sorry!

I don't know much about the camera you have, so I don't have any technical suggestions. But when you see something you like for a photo you can always make more photos of it than you need, so the change that the focus etc is good on one of them is bigger. That's what I always do, I make as much as possible and later on the computer I remove what I don't like, because on the screen of your camera you can't always see if it's out of focus!

 

[HomerSimpson]

a soft picture can occur from blur or dof (depth of field). You can get blur from a moving subject or from camera shake. You get dof when the aperture is low, for example f2.8 where the hole in the lens is opened really wide like your eye in a dark room. When It's wide like this more light reaches the digital sensor during the exposure. Now I doubt you have much control over your focus but in low light your camera will automatically use a large aperture(low number like f2.8 instead of f22) to allow as much light in as possible. A down side to this is that only a single area of an image can be in focus when the camera is close to the subject when compared to bright sunlight with the subject far away from the camera like in a landscape. SO you have to make sure your focused before you press the shutter. I have no idea what your camera is like but I bet you have to gently press the shutter button to focus before follow pressing it to take the shot. Experiment and try to get as much light in the shot as possible.

Yeah my camera does that halfway down pressy thing but I find that when I rely on that, I don't really get the shot that I want. My aperture goes from 2.8 to 5 something, I can only have those two. In sunlight is it better to use the 5 something aperture? e.g. if you're shooting a photo of a tree with the sun coming through the leaves? Or will that make the whole picture darker and not just eliminate glare? I am a TOTAL noob when it comes to depth of field, I may PM you about that if you don't mind :blushing:

Sorry if I went of at a tangent or if It sounds patronizing or really confusing. feel free to send me a message if you need any specific help.

What I mean by it looking too blue is that the green looks cold, if it looked warm the green would look yellow. But color is relative so it would look green next to blue but it would look blue next to yellow. To alter this you would have to start using a better software package. Gimp is the first choice for free decent image editing "I think". I'd start there.

Thanks