Suggestions about light, colors and sharpness ? Critique my shots

[lonerunner]

I have been shooting all around with my nikon d3100, every time i read something on internet i take my camera and test it but im not satisfied at all with brightness and colors of my images and sharpness is bothering me very much. I don't know if this is the best sharpness i can take with d3100 and 18-55mm lens or i am still missing something, but speaker image is sharpest image i was able to shoot. Another thing is lack of colors. Other images i look on the net took with nikon d3100 nave bright and vivid colors. Things i shoot i still don't see that great colors. Point is that i see them with my eyes but i don't catch them with my camera. So take a look at my images, give some critiques and give some suggestions . First 2 images are unedited jpegs, rest all have some corrections to have better colors or sharpness.

 

[Ballistics]

For what it's worth, the fact that these were all done with the kit lens is impressive. I suggest stopping down a bit to get more DOF and compensate with a higher ISO to
ensure a sharp image.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Nice photos you got there.
In addition to what Ballistics suggested, you can also try adjusting your in camera sharpness settings. By default your Nikon comes set to 3 under picture control for sharpness. Many people feel this gives softer images and adjust this to 6. I've done so and my images are coming out visibly sharper. Try that.

 

[Ballistics]

Nice photos you got there.
In addition to what Ballistics suggested, you can also try adjusting your in camera sharpness settings. By default your Nikon comes set to 3 under picture control for sharpness. Many people feel this gives softer images and adjust this to 6. I've done so and my images are coming out visibly sharper. Try that.

This effects RAW files?

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Nice photos you got there.
In addition to what Ballistics suggested, you can also try adjusting your in camera sharpness settings. By default your Nikon comes set to 3 under picture control for sharpness. Many people feel this gives softer images and adjust this to 6. I've done so and my images are coming out visibly sharper. Try that.

This effects RAW files?

I don't think so, I think just JPEGS. Wasn't sure what you were shooting though.

 

[lonerunner]

For what it's worth, the fact that these were all done with the kit lens is impressive. I suggest stopping down a bit to get more DOF and compensate with a higher ISO to
ensure a sharp image.

Im not sure if you are talking about aperture to stopping down a bit, but i will do complete test over the weekend with various aperture settings to see which one comes up sharpest. I did read on internet alot of testings and apparently sharpest images are at 55mm and f5.6 and for landscape widest dof with best sharpness should be 18mm and f16. Higher iso gives more sharpens but i didn't thought this camera will have that much noise, over the day it's ok to go up to 400 but over night it makes terribly large amount of noise i wouldn't go more than 200.

Nice photos you got there.
In addition to what Ballistics suggested, you can also try adjusting your in camera sharpness settings. By default your Nikon comes set to 3 under picture control for sharpness. Many people feel this gives softer images and adjust this to 6. I've done so and my images are coming out visibly sharper. Try that.

I set my camera to record raw + jpeg of every image and from what i saw raw files comes out completely flat,any settings like picture control, active dynamic light, noise reduction are not applied to the raw files, and changing sharpness doesnt work also. Although for jpeg's there is visible difference in changing sharpness. Looks like i will have to deal with post processing raw files and learn how to do it in lightroom.



One more thing. Im looking at some 200mm and 300mm lenses to get one of these over the summer. How that will have impact on quality of my images, or im mostly limited to the quality of my camera?

 

[Ballistics]

For what it's worth, the fact that these were all done with the kit lens is impressive. I suggest stopping down a bit to get more DOF and compensate with a higher ISO to
ensure a sharp image.

Im not sure if you are talking about aperture to stopping down a bit, but i will do complete test over the weekend with various aperture settings to see which one comes up sharpest. I did read on internet alot of testings and apparently sharpest images are at 55mm and f5.6 and for landscape widest dof with best sharpness should be 18mm and f16. Higher iso gives more sharpens but i didn't thought this camera will have that much noise, over the day it's ok to go up to 400 but over night it makes terribly large amount of noise i wouldn't go more than 200.

Nice photos you got there.
In addition to what Ballistics suggested, you can also try adjusting your in camera sharpness settings. By default your Nikon comes set to 3 under picture control for sharpness. Many people feel this gives softer images and adjust this to 6. I've done so and my images are coming out visibly sharper. Try that.

I set my camera to record raw + jpeg of every image and from what i saw raw files comes out completely flat,any settings like picture control, active dynamic light, noise reduction are not applied to the raw files, and changing sharpness doesnt work also. Although for jpeg's there is visible difference in changing sharpness. Looks like i will have to deal with post processing raw files and learn how to do it in lightroom.



One more thing. Im looking at some 200mm and 300mm lenses to get one of these over the summer. How that will have impact on quality of my images, or im mostly limited to the quality of my camera?

Yes aperture to stop it down which is the only setting that effects DOF. RAW is supposed to come out flat. It's a completely unedited, uncompressed image.
A smaller aperture will provide more DOF, which even if 5.6 is the sharpest @ 55, the shallow DOF will create soft edges anyway.

For example, your leaf image suffers from too shallow of a depth of field. One half stop down and you would have gotten the entire leaf in focus.

 

[lonerunner]

Yes aperture to stop it down which is the only setting that effects DOF. RAW is supposed to come out flat. It's a completely unedited, uncompressed image.
A smaller aperture will provide more DOF, which even if 5.6 is the sharpest @ 55, the shallow DOF will create soft edges anyway.

For example, your leaf image suffers from too shallow of a depth of field. One half stop down and you would have gotten the entire leaf in focus.

Leaf image was taken second or third time when i used my camera, i didn't know anything about using it and i was trying to get more light to have faster shutter speed to avoid blur from moving, normally smaller f number gives more light. I took some more pictures today and i think f9 or f11 looks most satisfying (at least for shots i took today). And post processing of sharpness and noise reduction is unavoidable for raw's.

Here is a bit edited image of a cat, now fur looks more sharper and noticeable, but there is still a little blur, ill guess it is because as you said f5.6 gives too shallow DOF. the other 2 images are with f11 and f9 and this looks better in focus. Ill try to shoot more of those with f9 and see what will come up. Specially with a cat.



What i still don't understand is how to get those vivid and bright pictures like this one's http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/macro-photography/316866-year-snake.html

 

[Ballistics]

normally smaller f number gives more light.

The smaller F number is a larger aperture. A larger F number is a smaller aperture. A smaller F number always gives more light.

And post processing of sharpness and noise reduction is unavoidable for raw's.

I rarely ever reduce noise of my raw images, but if you don't wont complete control over your images, shoot jpeg.

What i still don't understand is how to get those vivid and bright pictures like this one's The year of snake!

Well, for starters I bet those were all shot in raw . Vivid and bright photos come from vivid and bright subjects and also come from
post processing. A lot of your images have a lot of greys and darker colors. Look for more color.

 

[cynicaster]

What i still don't understand is how to get those vivid and bright pictures like this one's http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/macro-photography/316866-year-snake.html

Just as a little exercise you should spend some time messing around with different scenarios on a DoF calculator. I know it sounds kind of academic and dry, but it really does open your eyes to what’s going on. I grabbed a $2 app for my iPad and when I first started messing around with it, I was a bit shocked at how little DoF I had to work with in some very common scenarios. It went a long way to helping me understand why, up to that point, I had been struggling a bit with achieving the sharpness I was after.

As for colors, you will see immediate improvements if you learn some post processing basics. I can guarantee you that any photo you would hold up as an example of “this is what I want to do” has been prettied up in post with at least some fundamental tweaks (most likely contrast and/or saturation, probably much more).

 

[shelby16]

Honestly, I think you are doing great so far! The images of the cat are very sharp. Take in the other poster's advice, and you will succeed.