What am I doing wrong?

[JerseyJules]

Thats the look I was going for..How did you do that?

 

[KenC]

The problem with software background blur is that it looks phony. Everything is equally out of focus even though the distance from the camera varies greatly. I guess the fact that it doesn't look like anything that could be captured that way with a camera may not be a bad thing to some, but many people don't like it.

 

[Ysarex]

The problem with software background blur is that it looks phony. Everything is equally out of focus even though the distance from the camera varies greatly. I guess the fact that it doesn't look like anything that could be captured that way with a camera may not be a bad thing to some, but many people don't like it.

I agree -- an even blur is too obvious and often there is no other alternative so get it right in the camera. In the case of a photo like this where you have two receding planes (bldg. & lawn) you can try and simulate a progressive DOF but it's hard and although it may fool the public it won't fool a photographer.



OP: Edsport and I both faked-in a blue sky. Not a lot was said about your blown sky problem. Tirediron noted the option to use either fill-flash or an HDR technique. You need to understand that you were shooting into a light source -- effectively your photo is backlit. You've got to see that one coming before you trip the shutter because your camera has only one option in this case and that option is failure. Your camera blew out the sky and at the same time the statue is too dark. Think that through; you need less exposure so as not to blow the sky and at the same time you need more exposure on the statute. So increase and decrease exposure at the same time and you're good. There's no scene mode for that yet. The lighting contrast is prohibitive and requires intervention. Tirediron's two suggestions are your best options but both require additional hardware (flash or tripod) and additional work behind the camera. Two other options exists. My favorite would be come back when the lighting is better. The final option I would rank below Tirediron's two recommendations. This scene could have been processed out from a raw capture that didn't blow the sky -- sophisticated processing skill is a requisite and the end result would be less effective than the flash option.

Joe

 

[Edsport]

Thats the look I was going for..How did you do that?

As KenC said "software background blur do look phony" and doing it in camera is the way to go. I think maybe if i didn't blur it as much that it would have turned out a bit better than it did. I did it using photoshop by selecting the statues and then inversed the image to blur everything but the statues. The sky i did using a gradient...

 

[JerseyJules]

BTW this is the absolute best angle to shoot this statue. Any other angle and there is either a telephone pole, or small tree in the background. Im going to try this shot again early in the morning one day when the son is on the other side. This was taken at 7pm and the son was to the right of the statue.

 

[MTVision]

So stand farther away and zoom in on the image, then render the statue, then re-frame the shot is what your saying. I will give it a try. Another thing that was screwing with the focus was the boy is actually slightly forward from the cop and at an angle, so he would be the first portion the camera would focus on due to being closer.

My lens is a generic 18-55 that came with the camera. Im looking at picking up Nikon's new AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR.

I have no firsthand knowledge of the 18-300mm but IMO its probably not going to be any better then the 18-55 - except that you can zoom more. Do you specifically want an all-in-one lens?? The best thing about SLR's is that you can change the lenses Super zooms usually make sacrifices somewhere. Plus this lens still has a variable aperture meaning that as you zoom your largest available aperture changes - probably not a great low-light lens. And for the price you could probably get a couple better quality lenses.

If you want the reach of the 300mm the Nikon 70-300mm af-s VR lens is suppose to be really good quality. It's around 600.00 I believe.

The 55-300mm af-s VR lens isn't as good as the 70-300 but it's not bad. I have it and I don't have any complaints about it. $400.00

You already have the kit lens so you already have the 18-55mm range covered so you could get some good quality fast prime lenses.

50mm 1.8g af-s lens is an amazing lens for the price. It's around 220.00 - it's sharp (sharper then any of the zooms listed) and with the f/1.8 its great in low light.

35mm 1.8g af-s is around 200.00 and is another sharp, fast, decent lens for the price.

85 1.8g af-s - I believe it's around 500.00

Not sure what type of photography you are interested in but the 85mm lens would be an amazing portrait lens. The 50 isn't bad for portraits either. The 35mm is great for an everyday walking around lens.

Anyways - I know you didn't ask about lenses so sorry for the off-topic comment.

 

[SCraig]

So stand farther away and zoom in on the image, then render the statue, then re-frame the shot is what your saying. I will give it a try. Another thing that was screwing with the focus was the boy is actually slightly forward from the cop and at an angle, so he would be the first portion the camera would focus on due to being closer.

My lens is a generic 18-55 that came with the camera. Im looking at picking up Nikon's new AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR.

As MTVision commented, I have no first hand knowledge of the 18-300 either, however I would recommend that before you buy one you do some homework and check it out thoroughly. 18mm to 300mm is a whopping big zoom ratio (16.7x) and as a general rule (as opposed to a cast-in-stone rule) the higher the zoom ratio the lower the image quality.

When consumer-level zoom lenses first became available back in the 70's a 2:1 zoom ratio (i.e. 75-150 or 100-200) was about the limit. Anything higher were the very expensive broadcast television lenses. Pretty quickly 3:1 lenses became available and there was a HUGE difference between the 2x ratio lenses and the 3x. Over the subsequent decades zoom lenses have gotten dramatically better but the bottom line is that you are always trading a certain amount of image quality for convenience. The general rule that the larger the zoom ratio is the more the IQ degrades is still there albeit to a lesser degree. I haven't used an 18-300 lens but I'd really be skeptical of it until I saw some sample images shot with one.

Edit ... Forgot to mention that I have the Nikon 70-300 and love it. It's one of my favorite lenses.

 

[JerseyJules]

Thanks for the replies!!! I actually researched and wound up purchasing the Nikon 55-300, and here is my reasoning: The 18-55 got me covered for most situations, however I wanted more zoom for situations like my son's soccer and Karate where the 55 zoom dont cut it. The price was right and I can carry 2 lenses, the 18-55 and the 55-300 with me and cover a broad spectrum. As my skills progress, Im sure i will outgrow both and become more particular about my lenses and their specific purposes, but for now I think I will be pretty good.

FWIW I took some shots with the 55-300 yesterday, and I must say it is easy to use and the image quality is very good as long as the lighting is good!!!

 

[SCraig]

Thanks for the replies!!! I actually researched and wound up purchasing the Nikon 55-300, and here is my reasoning: The 18-55 got me covered for most situations, however I wanted more zoom for situations like my son's soccer and Karate where the 55 zoom dont cut it. The price was right and I can carry 2 lenses, the 18-55 and the 55-300 with me and cover a broad spectrum. As my skills progress, Im sure i will outgrow both and become more particular about my lenses and their specific purposes, but for now I think I will be pretty good.

FWIW I took some shots with the 55-300 yesterday, and I must say it is easy to use and the image quality is very good as long as the lighting is good!!!

You'll enjoy the 55-300. It covers the lengths that many of us use most of the time, from portrait to nature. I think that my 70-300 stays on my camera more than all my other lenses combined.