Newbie, 1st pictures posted today!

[GaryN]

Here is the next one.

This was my attempt at a shallow depth of field, in principle I think it worked.



Taken in Newquay harbour with my Canon SX1 IS. I was hoping that the gull would turn a little more side on but it refused. I'm not sure if the picture would have been better composed if I had of included the gulls legs?
Date taken: Thu, 18/08/2011 - Aperture: f/5.7Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec.ISO: 80

[GaryN]

Next up is another from Newquay.

I was trying to include the orangey, red plant in the foreground.



Taken in Newquay between Fistral beach and the main town/beach. The picture was taken with my Canon SX1 IS and the weather was glorious. Perhaps the horizon could do with a little levelling.
Date taken: Thu, 18/08/2011 - Aperture: f/3.5Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec.ISO: 80

[GaryN]

This was the image that I uploaded to the PhotoRadar gallery. But after looking through my pictures again I think that the second one below is a better shot, what to you guys think?





Perhaps crop some of the bottom of the second image?

[GaryN]

Lastly, this is my 1st attempt at using a long exposure. The camera was rested on a wooden fence that was in front of the waterfall to try and keep it steady.



Taken at the Eden project with Canon SX1 IS 1/4 second exposure, F8, ISO 200.

As I mentioned at the start of this post these are my first attempts at techniques that I have been reading about. All of the pictures were taken on the hoof so to speak when the missus, son and myself were in Cornwall a few weeks ago. All of the pictures are as they were taken, no cropping or adjustments have been done to them Installing Photoshop Elements 9 and seeing what I can do with that will be my next thing to have a go at.

That's all for now folks.

Thanks for your comments.

[silversnapper1]

Hi Gary,

Nice picture and it looks like the exposure is spot on. I agree with you about cropping out the shadows at the botom of the image as they don't do anything to enhance it. Also cloning the leaves. My main concern with this image though is the lack of depth of field. You say that it was shot at f4. A smaller aperture of say f11 would get the whole of the building in focus.

[silversnapper1]

Oops, missed the rest. Have to go out shortly so will look in again later.

[silversnapper1]

Ok, back again now.

The gull - You have succeeded in your aim of a narrow dof and, as you say, it may well have been better with the birds legs included. I would possibly go as far as to say that if you were a little bit further away you could have used some of the wall as a lead in and still achieved a similar effect and improved the composition.

Newquay - You are on the right lines here again including the foreground interest but again I feel that your aperture should be around the f11 mark to get sharpness throughout the scene. You have mentioned sloping horizons previously and this affects all of the seascape shots and, as you know, this can easily be corrected.

The two images of the house - the first one is nicely composed as the house is around the top right third. Unfortunately, I don't think that the fence does a lot for this one as it takes your eye out of the scene. The second is not quite so well composed with only part of the house in the scene and, if you could have turned or walked a little to your right to get it in the top third it would have been a lot better.

I love the composition of the waterfall and the long exposure effect. Again, I think that it lacks a little bit of depth and a small er aperture (higher f number) would benefit it making the whole scene sharp.

Overall, they are good images in the making. You have the right idea but I don't think that any of us can know it all, I certainly don't, and these are only my opinions on the images. Hope that this helps.

[GaryN]

Thanks for the feedback silversnapper.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post this is early days and I will continue to learn what I can and practice taking more pictures.

I am finding that I now take a camera with me as much as is practical in case I spot something interesting. Yesterday I took the camera with me when I took the dog for a walk, and we followed one of our normal routes but while looking around I spotted several things that I had not noticed before.

I am already starting to see some of the limitations of the camera's that I have, F22 is but a dream at present. F8 is all I have on the SX1 IS, F4.8 on the G7, but both of the camera's have features that allow me to experiment. Also my ability is also limited but it's an area that I'm working on

If funds allow I will look to purchase a DSLR but that will not be for at least 12 months so I will try to make the most of what I have.

I must say that I have been looking around the forum at some of the pictures that others have taken and some really are stunning and many are inspirational.

Thanks once again.

Gary.

[silversnapper1]

Hi Gary,

I picked up from your early posts that you were fairly new to photography so I have tried to be as helpful as I can. Your posts have been very helpful as you have stated what you were trying to achieve and this always helps when giving critique. I was unaware of the aperture values of your cameras but due to the different sizes of the sensors they may well be not too far apart from a full dslr in relative terms.

It's great to have a camera with you at all times. I have just bought a compact to back my dslr up whenever I am not carrying it. Yes, now that you have the bug you will see all sorts of things that you never noticed before.

I don't use f22 very much and you will probably find that is well past the sweet spot of most lenses. f11 to f16 are good for landscape shots and f22 is good for night shots to make street lights look like stars.

You seem to have a good eye for a picture and I think that the more that you get into it, the more you will learn and improve. Try focussing at a spot about one third of the way into your pictures and recompose to get the best depth of field. This will hopefully improve the sharpness throughout.

You are right about the pictures on the forum. There are some truly great ones here. I look forward to seeing your improved shots.

[jet_kit]

Originally Posted by silversnapper1

Hi Gary,

I picked up from your early posts that you were fairly new to photography so I have tried to be as helpful as I can. Your posts have been very helpful as you have stated what you were trying to achieve and this always helps when giving critique. I was unaware of the aperture values of your cameras but due to the different sizes of the sensors they may well be not too far apart from a full dslr in relative terms.

It's great to have a camera with you at all times. I have just bought a compact to back my dslr up whenever I am not carrying it. Yes, now that you have the bug you will see all sorts of things that you never noticed before.

I don't use f22 very much and you will probably find that is well past the sweet spot of most lenses. f11 to f16 are good for landscape shots and f22 is good for night shots to make street lights look like stars.

You seem to have a good eye for a picture and I think that the more that you get into it, the more you will learn and improve. Try focussing at a spot about one third of the way into your pictures and recompose to get the best depth of field. This will hopefully improve the sharpness throughout.

You are right about the pictures on the forum. There are some truly great ones here. I look forward to seeing your improved shots.

Hi Steve,

You're absolutely right about having a camera with you at all times. For this purpose I bought a compact bridge which fitted neatly into the glove compartment of my car, but didn't stay there long before it was pinched by my daughter. How do you stop that happening?