A few pics of my own

[garritynet]

The K200D is my first ever camera and I am super exited. My books still have not come in from Amazon but the camera did! Anyway here are a few of my better pics. There is no post processing as I am completely befuddled by my copy of Lightroom 2. The program that came with the camera dose not seem to work on my computer.

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4


Well, what do you guys think? Right now I am just experimenting with the priority modes while I wait for my books. Advice and critique appreciated.

 

[Krioni]

Here goes... I hope you're OK with constructive criticism, as it is part of learning. I will preface by saying that I'm certainly not a photographer and I look forward to hearing the critique of others as well....

Pic 1:
The best of the bunch, I like the depth of the picture, but the chair/stool legs on the right and the person (vacuuming?) in the background are both detractors in the picture. You might try a closer crop on the cat. Search for the rule of thirds... it could be applied to all of these pictures.

Pic 2:
Assuming the girl is the subject in this pic... Again, I would recommend a tighter crop and the rule of thirds. The straw, bottle top and waiter's hand are all distracting in this photo.

Pic 3:
Not really sure what to recommend here except that the picture seems very flat... can anyone else recomment something with this pic?

Pic 4:
This cat has interesting looking eyes, maybe a really tight crop and rule of thirds would help this picture.

Good luck... keep shooting and learning, it's all fun!

 

[soydios]

#1, #2, and #4: see Krioni's comments

#3: it's just poor lighting. cloudy day or shadow is how that happened. also the bright side is on the right side, and my eyes tend to move left-to-right across a picture, hence the uneasiness of my viewing because the left side is dark.

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keep shooting. you're looking for the right things to take photos of, now make sure there's no distractions in the frame when you are!

 

[Krioni]

One other thing that I failed to mention... don't be afraid to get really close to your subject (unless it's dangerous or something). Anytime I think I'm close enough, I take one step closer just to make sure.

Of course, the recommendation doesn't really apply if you do landscape photography

 

[garritynet]

Thanks!

I do intend to crop those pics.

 

[Fardringle]

I highly recommend reading through the tutorials in the "sticky" Digital Photography Resource Thread at the top of this forum. There is a lot of very good information there to help you improve your photos. In particular, read about the Rule of Thirds as Krioni mentioned to help you frame your photos to focus on the subject and make them more interesting to look at.

And for pictures that hazy or flat like your #3, read this gem to learn how to put some of the color and brightness back into the shot. A minute or two of quick editing will turn this (your original #3) into something more like this. I just did a quick edit as an example. With more precise adjustments you could make it look better.

 

[dnuggett]

for #3 some fill flash would have helped. Learn how to adjust your flash and dial it down in cases like this.

For the others.... meh. There really isn't anything to critique they were just random shots. Go shoot some wildlife, architecture, landscapes, night shots, something. That is if you want a critique...

Lightroom will help the technical aspect of your pictures, until you figure out how to take a better shot with the camera. Heck even after you do everything "almost" right, it still helps. But it won't make them more interesting to the viewer. Find what you like to shoot and shoot it a lot. If you shoot what you enjoy, it'll show in the shots. If you don't enjoy any particular subject, shoot what you are knowledgeable about. If you shoot what you know, that'll show too.

 

[garritynet]

There really isn't anything to critique they were just random shots.

I don't think they were random. I shot all those pictures many, many times. I know I shot the one of my girlfriend reading next to the patio almost a hundred times over what must have been at least an hour. That was the one I liked the most although my taste in photography is very much unsophisticated.

Lightroom will help the technical aspect of your pictures, until you figure out how to take a better shot with the camera. Heck even after you do everything "almost" right, it still helps. But it won't make them more interesting to the viewer. Find what you like to shoot and shoot it a lot. If you shoot what you enjoy, it'll show in the shots. If you don't enjoy any particular subject, shoot what you are knowledgeable about. If you shoot what you know, that'll show too.

Thank you, that is some of the best advice I have received to date. ( I have 8 cats so....yeah. Lots of cat portraits so far.)

for #3 some fill flash would have helped. Learn how to adjust your flash and dial it down in cases like this.

Thank, I look forward to reading about my flash in the magic lantern guide as I am having a hard time understanding the manual that came with it.

 

[garritynet]

For the others.... meh. There really isn't anything to critique they were just random shots. Go shoot some wildlife, architecture, landscapes, night shots, something. That is if you want a critique...

I thought about it for a while and I think maybe I should be more picky about my pictures. I guess with a digital camera that takes 480 free pics on a 8gig card makes for careless photography compared to a film camera that takes 20 pics per roll. I can see what you all are saying: like not moving the vacuum hose out of the way before photographing the cat or ignoring the rule of thirds.

 

[Krioni]

Originally posted by: garritynet
I thought about it for a while and I think maybe I should be more picky about my pictures. I guess with a digital camera that takes 480 free pics on a 8gig card makes for careless photography compared to a film camera that takes 20 pics per roll. I can see what you all are saying: like not moving the vacuum hose out of the way before photographing the cat or ignoring the rule of thirds.

Well thats part of the beauty of shooting digital and media/storage being so cheap... you are able to shoot A LOT of pics... be careless. But, if you can get yourself into the mindset of properly framing your pictures (like not including background stuff that distracts from the subject), you will end up with a lot more "keepers".

Keep up the efforts and don't let any of this critique slow you down. Learn. Get better. Shoot more.

 

[scott916]

Originally posted by: garritynet

For the others.... meh. There really isn't anything to critique they were just random shots. Go shoot some wildlife, architecture, landscapes, night shots, something. That is if you want a critique...

I thought about it for a while and I think maybe I should be more picky about my pictures. I guess with a digital camera that takes 480 free pics on a 8gig card makes for careless photography compared to a film camera that takes 20 pics per roll. I can see what you all are saying: like not moving the vacuum hose out of the way before photographing the cat or ignoring the rule of thirds.

Use that to your advantage. Take a shitload of pics that you think MAY work, and find the ones that do and see why. I can think of countless days of shooting where I filled up my cards and only found one shot that simply clicked.