Tuesday already?! I got home last night and realised I hadn't even thought about the photo challenge, luckily, I'd been messing around with my camera over the weekend! I also had the opportunity to take some pictures last night.
As the challenge didn't have a specific criteria this made it easier for me to pick a picture to submit. I initially decided to submit the following photo...
I don't really know why... but I really like this picture. I think it's the bench that does it for me... it's full of character. I also like the fact that the picture is predominantly green, Buster (the Jack Russell Terrier) really stands out because of this, in my opinion.
It's quite a noisy picture as I was using my 'cheap as chips' 500mm prime lens with a 2x teleconverter. This meant I had to set the ISO to 1600 to enable a quick enough shutter speed to avoid too much blur... he doesn't sit still for very long!
I edited the photo, and uploaded it to the challenge. However, last night whilst taking some pictures of the dogs I captured this photo completely by accident with my 90mm f2.8 Macro lens...
After receiving some feedback about this photo, I decided to make this my entry. I was reluctant at first as I don't think it's obvious what it is...? Maybe you're looking at it now without any idea what you're looking at! (It's Busters eye, he's asleep and was twitching so clearly having an interesting dream!).
You can view the rest of the results here.
There was a bit of a debate last week about the rules of the challenge, so this weeks 'theme' is 'Your Best Photo'. This is the first challenge, that I know of, where you're not required to take a picture within set time scales, but instead it allows you to look back over your portfolio and upload your favourite! I expect to see some awesome photos this time next week!
Hi Lee,
ReplyDeleteAs I said on flickr, I much prefer the second shot, and don't worry it's obvious it's a dogs eye! :)
Re: noise - ISO1600? Of course it's going to be a bit noisy! With my camera, noise starts being noticable at full crop around ISO400. You've got a much newer sensor than I have, but even so I'd expect noise to start creeping in around 1600.
Re: focusing, that shot of buster by the bench is a little soft for two main reasons.
1 - It's manual focus, and manual focus on a DSLR is a difficult skill to master as you have very little in the way of indication of how well focused you are.
If you look at the near end of the bench, it's slightly more in focus than buster is - so you misfocused a little.
To practice manual focusing, I found it helpful to stretch out a tape measure on a table or the floor and practice focusing on specific measurements. You can then zoom in on your LCD to see exactly how far off you were!
It's also something you can do while watching TV, so doesn't need specific space in your day. Win!
2 - Camera shake. It was shot at a shutter speed of 1/160 according to the exif. You say you're using a 500mm lens and a 2x teleconverter (which is effectively a 1000mm lens) - the exif says 300mm but may not know about the teleconverter.
Either way, the thing with long lenses is that any little movement at the body end gets translated into big movements at the subject end. This makes camera shake a real problem.
Go get yourself a pencil, and a broom handle or garden cane, then try the following.
Hold the pencil as close to one end as you can, and point the other end at something in the distance. How still can you keep the other end of the pencil? Now repeat that with a broom handle or a garden cane. Do you see a difference?
A general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't try to shoot with a shutter speed slower than 1/the focal length. So for a 500mm lens you need to be shooting 1/500th or faster. With your teleconverter in the mix, you'll need to be shooting 1/1000th or faster.
Speaking of teleconverters, they literally rob light. You can often lose a stop or even as much as 2 stops. Without the teleconverter you would have been able to hit 1/320th or possibly even faster.
That takes you into the no camera shake zone, and also stops buster moving around and causing motion blur.
So my advice would be, keep the teleconverter for astrophotography or other subjects where you can bolt things down on a very sturdy tripod.
For anything hand held, don't use anything longer than about 300mm - even then you want to be shooting around 1/300th or faster.
One last top tip. From looking at your exif data I notice you're shooting full auto. I'm not about to suggest you go full manual, but what I would suggest is that you start shooting aperture priority.
The aperture is the one control on your camera which makes the most contribution to the feel of the photo as it controls the depth of field (how much of the photo is in focus) - so set that manually and let the camera do the rest.
It takes you one step further away from point-and-shoot, but it's a good step to take!
I'm really enjoying your photography BTW. You're improving every week, and it's great to see the progress! Keep it up!
Cheers Paul. Top advice as always.
ReplyDeleteIm getting really confused now about which lens I took the photo with!! Lol