First week with a DSLR...criticism requested!

[kidzer]

Evening Folks,

So I bought myself a Nikkon D3100 the other week and took it to Spain with me, managed the odd decent photo but nothing particularly special I don't think.

I've been playing with it a fair bit in manual mode to try and understand ISO/DoF/Exposure time/Aperture/etc, which I'm sure I'll work out eventually!

Anyway, I was out in the garden today before F1 Qualifying and spotted a bee going round the flowers at the front and thought "Oh, I'll try and take some nice photos of that!" - so I did. I also took some of one of our cats as she was lazing on my bed.

Here are some of the ones I think are 'alright' - I quite like the two of the cat, but the ones of the bee could all do with some creative cropping or Photoshop work to make them a bit better and to remove some out of focus foreground stuff.

I know there are a bunch of smart cookies here who know way more about this photography lark than I can ever hope to, and I'd appreciated it if you could cast your eyes over these and point out what is good/bad about them - see if I can pick up some tips for future use!

Cat:
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...57627740599248
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...57627740599248

Bee:
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...7627740599248/
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...7627740599248/
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...7627740599248/

Full set of pics:
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmilne8...th/6177922648/

Cheers folks!

[kalniel]

1) Nice shot, quite tightly cropped in composition, but works fine. It's not displaying the Exif data so I can't see your shooting parameters - you need to include these so we know how to took the shot to be able to suggest improvements. Looks like the eye is not as sharp as it could be so perhaps a touch more depth of field required (smaller aperture/larger 'f number') or front focus (not the camera's fault, they will focus on the point closest the camera in the AF sensor's range) in any case, more eye sharpening in post process will help. White balance is a bit off as something is reflecting coloured light. Correctable in software again (incorrect interpretation of raw data, basically).

2) Focus point looks a little further back which is good, but the composition of the shot is lacking compared to #1. Same white balance issue.

3) well done for getting a bee in flight at all. Again, can't see meta data to suggest improvements - their could be a touch better resolution of the hairs, but unlikely you did anything wrong there. You could crop in post process to improve the composition

4) best shot of the lot - sharp, good colours, good moment. Love the pollen staining. Only distraction is the leaf in the foreground, but it's so out of focus it's hardly an issue.

5) better composition than #4, but the bees wings are moving and you've caught them at a bad moment, not quite as nice lighting as #4 as well.

Excellent for a first effort though - keep at it, and make sure to include/record the parameters so you know how changing them effects the results.

[Bobster]

#1

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3100
Exposure Time: 1/40
F Number: 5.6
Exposure Program: Manual
Date Time Original: 2011:09:24 13:05:59
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Flash: No Flash
Focal Length: 50.4 mm
White Balance: Sunny

#2

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3100
Exposure Time: 1/40
F Number: 5.6
Exposure Program: Manual
Date Time Original: 2011:09:24 13:06:01
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Flash: No Flash
Focal Length: 50.4 mm
White Balance: Sunny

#3

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3100
Exposure Time: 1/200
F Number: 10.0
Exposure Program: Manual
Date Time Original: 2011:09:24 13:14:15
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Flash: On, Return detected
Focal Length: 55.0 mm
White Balance: Sunny

#4

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3100
Exposure Time: 1/200
F Number: 10.0
Exposure Program: Manual
Date Time Original: 2011:09:24 13:16:47
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Flash: On, Return detected
Focal Length: 30.0 mm
White Balance: Sunny

#5

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D3100
Exposure Time: 1/200
F Number: 10.0
Exposure Program: Manual
Date Time Original: 2011:09:24 13:16:53
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
Flash: On, Return detected
Focal Length: 30.0 mm
White Balance: Sunny

[kalniel]

Thanks Bob, any chance of the ISO as well?

Seeing the aperture values I'd probably widen the aperture for the bee shots in future - f/10 is probably not optimal for that lens and you will be decreasing effective resolution which doesn't help with the bee hairs. That'll also help you isolate the background even more effectively. f/5.6 is fine for the cat *if* you get the focal point spot on, as you did in the second shot. Given the propensity to front focus though I'd consider narrowing a smidgen to help catch the eyes in the focal plane.

In both cases don't be afraid to use ISO to maintain appropriate exposure/shutter speed - it's probably the digital photographer's most useful tool (well that or cheap throwaways).

Use of 'sunny' white balance in the cat shots could be what's causing the white balance issue, were they shot indoors? If you've got the raw this is a free adjustment in post process.

Personally, I don't often worry with full manual mode - cameras have amazing light meters built in and it's a shame not to use them once you are familiar with the one in your own system. Consider the most critical elements of your shot (focal plane for the cat shots for example) and set that (aperture for eg.) as the priority mode, leaving the camera to adjust the other (shutter speed in the cat's case). I then adjust ISO as needed to keep within optimal parameters (or if I need to set both shutter and aperture, use auto ISO within a pre-defined range). In predictable conditions that you know the camera won't pick up (sunsets perhaps where you deliberately want a non-optimal exposure range) then you can use exposure compensation. And for extreme conditions (gigs etc.) you can go full manual.

[Bobster]

Cats 200 - bee 100 - not sure why it didn't come up in the info, should have done :/

[kidzer]

Hi guys,

Sorry for the delay in any response...been ill and not doing much!

First off, thanks very much for the pointers - I'll have a read of them in more detail tomorrow, and have a play about outside and see how I get on with those aperture/shutter priority modes - see if I can come up with anything decent!

On the cat ones - yeah, I noticed the white balance was set the way it was after I took the photos, and by then she'd moved to another perch to rest!

You said the white balance was off - and can tell that just by looking I assume - what gave it away? I don't know enough about this to spot that sort of thing yet, but I'd be interested to know how you notice it!

Many thanks!

[kalniel]

You said the white balance was off - and can tell that just by looking I assume - what gave it away? I don't know enough about this to spot that sort of thing yet, but I'd be interested to know how you notice it!

Yes it's noticeable by just looking. Hard to put colour references in words - there's a green cast and it's too 'warm' for the realistic lighting in that situation. It's something you'll start to get better at as you take more photos and start to take notice of lighting - I understand more about light now than I used to, and photo processing becomes an exercise in trying to recreate a scene as I remember it. Cameras can't do that - you can take a shot of a reference grey card and use that to calibrate, but even that doesn't recreate how we remember scenes as we're not consistent. (Take my shield bug shot in photo a day a few days ago (http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/1355/p9101969.jpg) - it's deliberately too warm/yellow, because it was under a fairly yellow room light so that actually matches how I remember the scene).

But if you shoot in RAW then white balance is a free (non image quality affecting) adjustment so you can just play with different settings and see what best fits the scene as you remember it. Do try moving it though, because you might not notice it being unnatural until you hit a more natural setting somewhere else.

[g8ina]

Good start, welcome to the madhouse.

[cam1986]

Lovely shots. Well done on getting them so crisp

[Plonk]

Great shots, especially the cat ones. It's good that you are learning manual off the bat, I was using auto modes the first few weeks of my first DSLR and now years later I never touch them. For the bee shots the built in flash has kind of made the shadows harsh, and the eye can be tempted to look at the more highlighted regions such as the flower or the greenery which come out quite vividly due to the flash.

In my opinion I think it would look nicer if the bee shots were without flash which would require a higher ISO and possibly wider aperture in order to retain the fast speeds needed to capture the little guy. Bumping up the ISO to 200-400 should not really have too much of a grain effect, especially if you are just uploading them to sites like Flickr.

Great start though, I think one of the best tips I got when I started out was the 'rule of thirds' (the first few sites on google are useful, sorry can't post links yet!) Obviously this does not make a shot instantly look good, nor does it mean shots not using it are bad. But it can make for some real nice photos. Also if you are enjoying flower/nature shots it may be worth investing in a prime lens in which you can widen the aperture greatly in order to create lovely bokeh.

[scupper]

Nice Pussy pictures
i have a D3100 .... use it mainly for Video not a bad bit of kit for the money !

[dendik]

Like your cat photo

[prateek76]

Good photographs. Especially liked the bee ones.

One basic suggestion is that, if you are not then, shoot in RAW; either exclusively or RAW+jpeg.
Since I started shooting in RAW... I haven't looked back and have never shot in JPEG after that.

You may chose to use auto modes with RAW, rather than full manual or Av/Tv modes if you are not comfortable.
As kalniel said... you get a lot of post processing adjustments only in RAW as it is totally lossless unprocessed data.