BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: New Answers

New to the forum.

After taking some recent photos of a trip to NYC, I was disgusted on how they turned out, and decided it was time to ask the pro's for some help.

I am a rookie for sure but Im eager to learn. I have taken most pictures on the Simple Setting. I have read through the manual, but have not had good luck with my experiments.

I have an HP Photosmart 8250 printer which works pretty good but the ink dies pretty quickly. I have taken some to the local drug store for printing and its been hit or miss.

I think I am missing something with the settings with the camera right from the start.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

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November 23, 2006

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November 23, 2006

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November 23, 2006

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November 24, 2006

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November 24, 2006

I took a look at your images and the one thing that jumps out right away is that you shot many of your images in mid-day light. The fall foliage images are particularly evident of being shot in harsh light. Often times you can fix color problems simply by shooting at a different time of day. In the fall (at least in New England) the light is much better in early morning of late afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky and the light is softer. I also love somewhat stormy days when the sky is full of clouds or even, under some conditions, when the sky is gray. Waterfalls are hard to shoot when sun is reflecting directly on the water. (Such as in your picture “Alger Falls”) The use of a circular polarizing filter is extremely helpful when photographing water, again when the sun is high in the sky you get unwanted reflections that can mar an otherwise nice image. The polarizer can help, but shooting at another time of day with the polarizer will make all the difference.

Compositionally, be aware of what is in the corners of your image before you push the shutter. “Winter Garden” looks a little skewed because you included something of the ceiling (?) on the left, but nothing on the right. It would be better if you had narrowed down on just the trees. There is also an exposure problem here. I suspect that you took an overall exposure value in the entire space without zeroing in directly on the trees and that that the space had high contrasting light. Your boat shot is divided in half almost equally – something you might want to avoid – with the boat at the center line. There are too many elements in the image causing the eye to wander trying to figure out what to focus upon. By zooming in on your subject, while eliminating as many distracting factors as possible, you may get a stronger image. Your image “Striking a pose” would be better if you took your exposure value from the boys face and then recomposed to include the background. In that way the image would be exposed properly for the most important subject, the child. (Use the spot metering choice in your camera if it has one).

My best advice to you, the same advice that most everyone here has received and given at one time or another, is to keep shooting and post both your successes and failures so you can benefit from the enormous body of knowledge here. Oh, also, have fun with this!

Irene

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November 24, 2006

Please keep in mind when you talk about things such as a polarizing filter or spot metering I have no clue what you mean, so if you could give me a little more info on these things when talking about them that would be great.

So now I see time of day has a lot to do with things and the light reflection off the water makes a lot of sense.

How about the settings on the camera itself when taking photo's? Like I said I usually have the camera set to simple mode.

How about shutter speed or other settings?

Thanks again. I'll spend some more time over the weekend browsing the forum and other comments.

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November 24, 2006

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November 24, 2006

Time of day is extremely important to nature/outdoor photography! You will find that as you develop as a photographer that you will grow more aware of light at different times of day and year. I find that most subjects photograph better when the sun is lower on the horizon and that water subjects pretty much demand that the sun not be directly overhead. Waterfalls are really hard to photograph when the sun is shining on the water and I like shooting them best when it is cloudy outside.

Most cameras offer you options as to how to meter (read the light) a subject. The 3 most common options are: spot, center metered (or matrix on some cameras) and evaluative. I tend to use spot metering when attempting to capture a subject that contrasts strongly to the background or when shooting macro shots. In your case, when trying to capture the image of the young boy you could have selected spot metering, moved in close to his face, taken your reading from the face, stepped back and recomposed keeping the meter settings that your camera got from his face and then shooting the image. This might have delivered a better image. You need to look in your manual to see how to select the various metering options. You might want to experiment with them in various situations until you get an understanding of how your particular camera reads light. This is another issue: every camera “reads” light a little different. My Canon 5D tends to strongly overexpose in high contrast situations and to off set this I usually select spot metering and deliberately underexpose the image using manual mode. You just need experience to tell you how your camera reads light.
The best advice I ever received when I first got serious about my photography was to start shooting in manual mode or at least in either aperture or shutter priority mode. Aperture is used to control depth of field – the degree of sharpness in an image – and is often referred to as the F-stop #. The smaller the F-stop #, the shallower the depth of field. Thus, F2.5 will give you detail close up and F22 will give you overall detail of a scene. If you are trying to eliminate a too busy background or provide focus to an individual detail in an image you want to select a smaller f-stop. Shutter speed determines the speed as which you shutter closes. If you are trying to stop action – say in a sports scene – you want to select a higher shutter speed #. If you want to show action as something of a blur (very effective for waterfalls and other type situations) you will select a slower shutter speed. In most photographic situations you will probably want to first determine your aperture (DOF) setting and then adjust the shutter speed. That is why it may be easier to use the aperture priority setting on your camera and later graduate to manual mode. Just keep in mind that the higher the f-stop the greater the dof and that if you want to isolate elements in an image, use a lower f-stop.

Keep in mind that learning how to correctly use a camera is a process, like anything else and that your mistakes may teach you more than your successes! I don’t think that there is anyone here, beginner to pro, who didn’t start out creating pretty average images. The great thing about digital is that your mistakes don’t cost you anything! So, read your manual and get out there and shoot as much as you can. Good luck!

Irene

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November 24, 2006

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November 24, 2006