how to take more 'professional' looking photos?

[Maximus96]

heres a shot of my gf's rabbits.. how do i improve myself to take better photos? what are some good sites to read up on. i tried photo.net...thanks

 

[zimu]

check out THIS

 

[spidey07]

learn the basics.

I don't know what the basics are but composition, contrast, framing, depth of field, focus, etc might be them.

 

[amcdonald]

Put pancakes on their heads.

 

[pyonir]

Photozo.com

how do you do it? Practice. Reading and practice.

 

[zimu]

as for your photo of the rabbits, i'd have had the camera higher up so you can get some depth perception. the picture looks too 2-d and you don't really get the feeling of size and depth.

 

[ohtwell]

Is that a turd in the picture?


Cute rabbits btw! I think the picture would have looked better if it wasn't so close-up! That's just my opinion though.


: ) Amanda

 

[Bootprint]

That's not a rabbit, it's Snuffleupagus.

 

[Maximus96]

Originally posted by: ohtwell
Is that a turd in the picture?


Cute rabbits btw!


: ) Amanda

yup, didn't notice it at the time. thanks for the quick replies, i will read up on those links

 

[bootymac]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Put pancakes on their heads.

LMAO

 

[Homerboy]

WHOAH! First learn to resize before you post online...

2ndly I dunno

 

[yobarman]

lighting lighting lighting! you can't take a professional pic with the flash on a camera, you have to set up lights around your subject for better looking photos

 

[kag]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Put pancakes on their heads.

HAHAHA

 

[JoeKing]

lighting and symmetry is nice for portrait pics. Notice how the bunny is clipped in the right but there's so much space on the left. The background is ugly.

 

[CPA]

Man, edit out that turd, that is nasty.

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Put pancakes on their heads.

HAHAHAHAHA thanks for the chuckle.

 

[dquan97]

Originally posted by: kag

Originally posted by: amcdonald
Put pancakes on their heads.

HAHAHA

that got a laugh out of me too

 

[OulOat]

Make the aperature bigger only the bunny will be in focus. Also, b&w is the only way to go.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Homerboy
WHOAH! First learn to resize before you post online...

2ndly I dunno

Yes, really. Learn how to use Photoshop's "Image Size" and "Save for Web" commands... :frown:

Originally posted by: yobarman
lighting lighting lighting! you can't take a professional pic with the flash on a camera, you have to set up lights around your subject for better looking photos

Seconded. There's a reason that any good wedding photographer uses a Stroboframe or equivalent flash bracket. Not to mention that studio photographers don't use any on-camera flash at all.

Originally posted by: OulOat
Make the aperature bigger only the bunny will be in focus. Also, b&w is the only way to go.

With the consumer digital camera that he's probably using (I didn't take time to download his freaking huge JPEG on my dialup connection to see the EXIF info), the sensor will be so small that even at a narrow (zoomed in) perspective and a wide aperture, he's not going to get much depth of field because the lens itself will still have a very short focal length compared to 35mm or APS-format digital.

In this case, finding a non-distracting background will help a lot if you can't do much about the DOF. Consider plain colored sheets, poster boards, etc for backgrounds. Either that or something natural, like the side of a bush (green anything goes well with wildlife).

Also, I disagree about the B&W comment, but sometimes it can look better than a color photo, depending on the subject (I certainly don't think it's the "only way to go" all of the time). Anyway, if you want a B&W photo, shoot it in color in the camera, and then use Photoshop's Channel Mixer in Monochrome mode to do your B&W conversion, so you get the effect of B&W color filters, even without having any on the camera at the time of exposure.

 

[SaltBoy]

[Lenny]Tell me about the rabbits, George. [/Lenny]

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: OulOat
Make the aperature bigger only the bunny will be in focus. Also, b&w is the only way to go.

Bah. B&W just makes things easy. You only have to worry about light and dark, without a whole lot of concern to the actual colors of things. It "looks" more artsy-fartsy but IMO it's more challenging and satisfying to get a good color shot than a good B&W shot.