Some interesting macro shots...C&C welcome

OrionsByte · Feb 10, 2011

Around here, you're going to get far more Critiques than Comments. What you do with that is up to you - you can be offended and discouraged, or you can take what's said and try to do better next time.

There are a lot of ways you can use this site to make your shots better:

Critique other people's photos. I often find that I learn a lot just by helping other people to learn, and since you don't have a lot of pride associated with the photos other people have taken, it's easier to be critical.
Critique your own photos before posting them. Once you start seeing things in other people's photos that you like and don't like, it's easier to look at your own photos objectively. Many of my own photos never make it past this step, because I've learned to be very self-critical, and that's a good thing.
Post your own photos, but brace for the worse. In fact, before you post something, ask yourself how you'd feel if people tore it apart. If you can't handle that, don't post it, no matter how good you think it is. However, if you've made it past that second step, you've self-critiqued and think it's pretty good, then if someone has a couple areas they think you can improve on, you probably need to hear it. Why? Because either you didn't see the problems in your photos, so your self-critiquing needs work, or because there were problems that you didn't even know you needed to look for. Either way, it's a learning experience.

You can learn a lot about photography before you ever lay hands on a DSLR. Don't give up, and don't be discouraged by criticism. Even when that criticism is unnecessarily harsh or mean, you can choose to take the advice and ignore the rest.

I hope to see you around here for a long time.

PhillyPhoton · Feb 10, 2011

I would not get discouraged, photography is a journey, not a destination, you can constantly learn, & practice, practice, practice...and all that ^^^^^^^^^^

rlemert · Feb 10, 2011

(For the record - my first post on this forum.)

No one has ever been required to blindly accept someone else's advice. The person giving the advice could be wrong in matters of fact, and they could just have different tastes in matters of opinion. You should generally try to understand what they're saying, but beyond that it's up to you whether you follow that advice or ignore it.

lyonsroar · Feb 10, 2011

rlemert said:
(For the record - my first post on this forum.)

No one has ever been required to blindly accept someone else's advice. The person giving the advice could be wrong in matters of fact, and they could just have different tastes in matters of opinion. You should generally try to understand what they're saying, but beyond that it's up to you whether you follow that advice or ignore it.

It is when the advice is founded that you ought to listen and learn and stop making the same mistake...

OP:
Getting a dSLR won't help you learn composition. It won't help you learn the exposure triange. It won't help you learn how to control light. It won't help you learn the effect of ISO.

As long as you have a decent P&S or bridge camera that you can manually adjust some setting, you can learn to take great pictures. Heck, one of the photos I'm most proud of I took with my Canon SX120IS bridge camera. Didn't have auto bracketing. I took the 5 exposure HDR manually. The focus was spot on so it turned out marvelously! All on a glorified P&S.
Twas this picture:
porsche1_desat | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

You CAN dew eet!!

Ashleigh80 · Feb 10, 2011

Yeah I guess you guys are right...I was just getting frustrated.. I can't find anything interesting to shoot around the house. I need to get out for a day and just go shoot, shoot, shoot. There are some really nice places around here but I have no car which if I did I could go to some real nice places and get some nice photos and I have been so busy lately that I litterally only taking pics for like a half hour, so when I am shooting I am like doing everything in a hurry, so next time I go shoot I am going to take my time so I can play with the settings and learn what they do more, I also find editing them confusing as well....there are a lot to those programs (I use gimp) I can't find a free version of adobe, but yeah it's going to take a long time to learn all these things, I never thought photography would be so confusing . For instance I play paintball but I learned quick about all the guns and equipment and how to fix any gun you put in front of me or could name any type of gun and could tell what was wrong with it just by how it was shooting or not shooting. I wish I could learn photography that fast but it seems like there is just sooo much to it. But enough rambling on, thank you folks for your advice and I will keep at it and hopefully next time the will be a bit better.